The Jura is home to some of France's oldest vineyards and lays claim to being the first area in the country to establish its own appellation controlee - the guarantee that the place name on the label is where the wine comes from.
Interestingly, the region is also one of France's best-kept secrets, off the tourist track for many overseas visitors while also unexplored by many French people. Lying next to Switzerland, south of the Alsace and to the east of Burgundy, Jura is Celtic for forest. Much of its woodland remains but the overriding impression is one of a hilly area that becomes more mountainous near the Swiss border.
Archaeologists have found the remains of vines from 5,000 years ago, but it was the Romans, as elsewhere in France, who developed their cultivation and took the praise for doing so from as early as the first century BC.
By the end of the 19th century the land under vine cultivation extended to 20,000 hectares, although the phylloxera virus caused by an imported plant louse from the United States at the end of the 19th century and the two world wars in the 20th century wrought havoc.
Now the vineyards extend to a little over 2,000 hectares in an area called the Revermont - an arc extending north to south from Salins-les-Bains to Saint-Amour. Of these, 1,650 hectares qualify for appellation controlee.
The Jura prides itself on being the only area in France to offer the so-called five colours of wine. The reds are made from the pinot noir and trousseau varietals; rose wine from the poulsard varietal; white wine from chardonnay and savagnin. Straw wine is made from chardonnay and savagnin grapes that have been put out to dry for two to three months on trays. Then there is vin jaune or yellow wine - similar to a very dry sherry - which is aged for at least six years in small barrels that are not completely filled, therefore resulting in oxidation. This is produced in the village and environs of Chateau-Challon.