Jacques Puffeney has been called the "Pope of Arbois.”  And over his more than fifty-year career, he made a range of traditional Jura wines with no peers in their consistent expression of the region's unique terroir.

In the New York Times, Eric Asimov has described Puffeney's wines as having “the incisive power of a hard stare combined with the grace of a smile.” Andrew Jefford calls them "fine, pure and exquisitely typical.”

Having made his first wines in 1962, Puffeney came to intuitively understand vintage conditions and had a unique ability to craft wines that would perfectly express and extraordinary year. Cuvée Christelle was such a wine.

But, because of the wine's minute production, it's difficult to know exactly how many times he made it.

On CellarTracker, only the 2004 shows up in private collections. (A mere 3 bottles.)  Our research turned up a couple of tasting notes on a 1989 Christelle on an obscure French wine message board, claiming it was the first vintage made, but not a bottle can be found in CellarTracker collections.

There are also no CellarTracker sightings of the 1999, perhaps making our bottles the only ones out there.

One thing is certain: Puffeney only made Christelle when conditions allowed his Savagnin and/or Chardonnay to be late-harvested. If the fermentation went fully dry, he raised the wine like a vin jaune and bottled it as Cuvée Delphine.

But if the fermentation stopped with residual sugar remaining, Puffeney kept it in barrel, topped up, for six years, finally bottling it as Cuvée Christelle.

The result is a massively textured yet finessed palate that is oxidative yet fresh, with an unending finish. With only a small barrel made and the wine never imported to the U.S., don't expect to see it again.