France

The story of this near-mythical domaine begins in 1929, when Maurice Migné cleared a forest to plant 1ha of Petit Manseng on a prime southeast-facing site in Jurançon's Chapelle de Rousse. He steadily built a reputation as the region's pre-eminent producer, and by the 1980s Clos Joliette had attained cult status.Maurice's wife Jeanne continued to run the domaine after his death, and when she died in 1989, the Parisian wine merchant Michel Renaud took ownership, after outmanoeuvring a string of interested parties (including actor Gérard Depardieu). Michel planted another 0.5ha and maintained the Mignés's old fashioned approach to winemaking, but hoarded almost all of the domaine's tiny annual output, sparking feverish speculation every time bottles appeared for sale on the auction market. (Legend has it that Didier Dagueneau stole cuttings from Clos Joliette to propagate for his own Jurançon estate, Jardins de Babylone, around this time.)Michel died in 2015, prompting a family dispute and protracted legal case over who would take over. His daughter took the initiative, installing Lionel Osmin to farm the vineyard, make the wines and distribute Clos Joliette's extensive library of back vintages.As a local from a wine-loving family, Lionel had tasted numerous vintages of Clos Joliette in his youth: "Many of them were fantastic, but great wines were made here in spite, not because, of the previous owners." Barrels were left to ferment at their own pace and, after five years, bottled and binned separately – some had fermented completely dry; others were lusciously sweet and many lay somewhere in between.In an effort to make sense of this remarkable back catalogue, Lionel assembled a team of renowned critics and sommeliers to rank the bottlings for quality, with the best divided into three sweetness categories and sealed under different coloured wax: green for wines under 10g/l of residual sugar, yellow for those between 10-30g/l and orange for those over 30g/l.Thrilling and eclectic – a combination of peerless terroir and the inherent quality of Petit Manseng – they veer from razor sharp, Sercial-like dry wines loaded with dried apricots and roasted nuts, to lusciously exotic sweet wines that balance ripe mango with searing acidity. These are truly unique wines, the like of which will never be seen again.

Clos Joliette/Lionel Osmin

Wines

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