From Languedoc to Jura with Love

After months of rumors, Jean-François Ganevat has confirmed that his estate and négociant business was sold in September 2021, but that he and his sister Anne are to stay on. The buyer is Alexander Pumpyanskiy, who lives in Geneva, Switzerland.

Pumpyanskiy is son of the Russian steel-industry magnate Dmitry Pumpyanskiy and the family has owned Prieuré Saint-Jean de Bébian in the Languedoc since 2008. They have invested hugely into the restoring the property, converting the vineyards to organics and biodynamics, building a new winery, and creating a wine tourism center with a Michelin-starred restaurant and small hotel.

Working in finance and for the family business, Pumpyanskiy took on overall responsibility for Bébian 10 years ago when he was still in his early 20s, working closely with Bébian’s director Benoit Pontenier; he has been looking to acquire another estate for some time.

Jean-François Ganevat, who took over from his father in 1998 after working in Burgundy, transformed their small family wine estate in a sleepy hamlet of the southern Jura, to become one of a handful of cult Jura estates.

With 13 hectares of vineyards run biodynamically, Domaine Ganevat and its associated négociant business offer a huge range of wines, admired by traditionalists and natural wine lovers alike, and sold across the globe on allocation. For certain Jura cuvées, high demand has resulted in massive price hikes on the secondary and tertiary markets, unimaginable even five years ago.

The authentic and tiny French wine region of Jura has seen its national and international fame rise inexorably over the past decade, all the while suffering through a series of difficult vintages, culminating in a disastrous 2021 vintage. Domaine Ganevat has not been immune to the pressures facing the whole region, with not only climate challenges leading to erratic vintage volumes, but also staffing problems and concerns about succession.

Change and no change

The sale of one of Jura’s iconic estates has almost inevitably given rise to jealousies and unwanted comments, not only from locals and colleagues, but also from its fanbase of customers, concerned for the future of the region’s heritage. Yet the Ganevats, as well as their buyer, insist little will change.

Speaking with Pumpyanskiy this week, he said: “It’s a totally different approach from Prieuré Saint-Jean de Bébian, where we bought it and everything had to be done from scratch. With Ganevat the idea is really to change as little as possible. Because we already love the products, it’s a great property – wonderful clients and a great friendly climate of winemakers and clients. Anne is doing a great job at administering the property and managing the less fun part… We are obviously keeping the name Ganevat, which will stay forever with the property.”

As well as the name, the sale included 10ha of vines, the buildings and the stock. It was a pre-condition that Jean-François would stay on, something he readily agreed to. Officially he will be working as consultant, while Anne manages the property and the administration, assisted by her daughter Clémence.

Pumpyanskiy elaborated: “Today the property ­is Jean-François. He is really relieved, because he was able to get rid of all the pressure from [having] a potentially bad vintage, the case in 2021… Our role in this project is that we have to make sure that Jean-François can stay at the property as long as he can, and really make a passerelle [bridge/pathway] to the next generation [of winemakers].”

Keen to allow Ganevat to get help right away and to transmit his “know-how and savoir-faire”, the first change has been to take on enologist Jocelyn Broncard, who has a decade’s experience working at the Jura wine laboratory, followed by a couple of years with Domaine Rolet.

Pumpyanskiy explained that Broncard was selected by Jean-François, who believes he has what it takes to make those authentic wines but commented that “it’s a journey and he has a lot of things to learn”, something endorsed by both Broncard and Ganevat. The latter has made the point repeatedly that with the large number of vineyard plots he manages, only he understands how to manage them.

© Domaine Ganevat
| The cult Jura producer’s wines have won fans around the world.

According to Pumpyanskiy: “The general project is to make sure that it [the domaine] continues eternally for as long as it can.” The immediate plans are ones that Ganevat already had in mind: to extend the buildings to give space for longer barrel and bottle aging.

Speaking with Ganevat last week, he explained that the warming climate is leading to changes in the grapes that affect natural fermentations and subsequent aging. Several producers in the Jura region have cuvées from 2018 that have not yet finished fermenting and other recent vintages have presented different issues.

He believes that longer aging in both barrel and bottle before release is crucial for his white wines, to create greater complexity. Now he has the means to put this in place. The 2018 Ganevat cuvées are being released in stages, and cellar release prices will be the same or lower than 2017.

Pumpyanskiy expresses another wish for the future: “Seeing how clients are welcomed, I think we really need to keep that spirit of open doors… Eventually I would like to have a ‘table d’hôte’ [communal dining] offering where people can come and spend time, enjoying [wines and food] with Anne and Jean-François without them having to cook for 25 people. It’s never going to be a proper restaurant; we really want to keep the authenticity of the domaine that goes back 16 generations. When you enter the house, you want to feel that spirit.”

The natural wine lover

Pumpyanskiy inherited his passion for wine from his father, who as an entrepreneur and investor wanted to acquire a wine property, hence the purchase of Prieuré Saint-Jean de Bébian in 2008, when Alexander was just 21. As he was living in Geneva and spoke French, he was the family member to become involved.

He comments: “Like many things in life it’s always a few coincidences that develop you and make you choose [your] path, and very often it is the story of meeting the right people at the right time.” For Alexander this was Benoit Pontenier, director of Bébian.

“I guess he was, to some extent, my mentor in wine, and he made me discover natural wines, but most importantly in the beginning, biodynamic wines and this was the path for me, where I really started discovering the world of natural wine.”

It was only going to be a matter of time till the young Pumpyanskiy discovered Jura wines. And then, “I met Jean-François Ganevat only recently, maybe a couple of years ago, we had a couple of discussions… It was really our passion for the products, our respect of their work and his willingness also to pass on the property to someone else, to be released from all the pressures that winemakers have in their day to day life.”

So, which of Ganevat’s wines are his favorites? “The variety is really big, right? You have a lot to choose from, I guess different wines for different occasions, different people, different moods. Maybe the wines that really marked me at the time that I was getting to know his wines were Les Vignes de Mon Père [Savagnin] and Cuvée Julien in reds.”

The affinity between the people involved is crucial here and was repeated by the Ganevats. Anne commented: “You don’t sell a family business just like that to anyone.” And Jean-François emphasized that what he liked about this purchase proposition (he claims to have had several) was the person. For him Alexander is a Swiss, not a Russian. “He doesn’t like chi-chi, like drinking Cristal.” He went on to explain that when Alexander visits the domaine it is not to give directions, but to share the pleasure of the wines.

Pumpyanskiy summed up: “What we are doing is noble to some extent and it’s tough work. Hopefully people will understand in a few years that our intentions are the right ones. We have nothing to do but just to prove ourselves with our work and the wines that we make. People will decide later.”

There is much more to this story. Will Pumpyanskiy take on more properties in Jura or elsewhere? In terms of Jura, Alexander said that was unlikely, although he would certainly want to acquire suitable vineyard plots if they became available, and he might consider investing elsewhere, probably in France.

The mutual respect and friendship that appears to be developing between Jean-François Ganevat and Alexander Pumpyanskiy may well lead one to egg on the other in taking on new ventures. Meantime, there is work to be done in the tiny hamlet of La Combe, Rotalier, Jura.