Les Bottes Rouges is a small domaine in Jura, that once forgotten but now fabled part of France between the Alps and Burgundy. It was created by Jean-Baptiste Menigoz just a few years ago and the vines are now tended and the wines made by Jean-Baptiste and Florien Kleine Snuverink.
Jean-Baptiste’s background is in education. His first career was in Arbois as a teacher of children with special needs. But he became fascinated by the developing wine scene around him, particularly natural wines, and after a period living a double life, teaching and making wine in any spare time he had, learning from the regions top growers, he made the leap to full time wine growing.
Florien is originally from the Netherlands, her background is hospitality (she owned the famed Café Schiller in Amsterdam) and is a long time proponent of natural wines. After working for a while in Jura, learning wine growing from the ground up, she joined Jean-Baptiste at Les Bottes Rouges in 2014.
The philosophy at Les Bottes is simple: to make wines they like to drink themselves. Which means organic farming, natural fermentations with native yeasts, no fining or filtration, and low or no sulphur.
Their wines have the undefinable but incredible energy and purity that all great wines share. And we love where they put their priorities. On a recent visit we were in a bit of trouble as we were running late and there was work to do in the vineyard, so could we please just get a move on…
