WTN: Forget Chablis and Champagne, the best Chardonnay is...

...from Jura!



Today we had a nice small tasting of a few wines imported by Vin Nature.

• 2003 Marcel Deiss Pinot Blanc Bergheim - France, Alsace, Bergheim, Alsace AOC (11/28/2007)
  Apple pie and red fruit on the nose - quite interesting actually. Very full bodied palate, oily, very alcoholic (tastes much more than the 14% it says on the label). There are some attractive aromatics, but the textures don't work for me.
• 2004 Marcel Deiss Gewürztraminer Saint-Hippolyte - France, Alsace, Wintzenheim, Alsace AOC (11/28/2007)
  A little bit candied nose, but true to the grape and with - I admit - some very attractive mineral tones. Plump, sweetish palate but balanced enough thanks to some grip. I don't usually care for Deiss's style, but this was ok in small doses.
• 2004 Domaine Ganevat Côtes du Jura Les Grands Teppes Vieilles Vignes - France, Jura, Côtes du Jura (11/28/2007)
  This smells clean, un-funky and un-oxidised, yet it still has interesting character and shows pretty Chardonnay fruit. I feel that there is perhaps a touch more oak influence than necessary, but the oak isn't offensive. The palate shows some of the wild character I hope to see in Jura with healthy and bright acidity, rather strong tannins for a white, and lots of citrussy fruit. I like it!
• 2004 Stéphane Tissot Arbois Les Graviers - France, Jura, Arbois (11/28/2007)
  This totally rocks! The nose is pleasantly funky and screams Jura at me, yet it is still at the same time a very pure expression of the Chardonnay grape. The palate has arresting grip, good acidity, surprisingly firm tannins for a white wine and lots of citrussy fruit and that flor-like aroma of Fino sherry. The aftertaste last forever. I love this wine.
• 2006 Robert Plageoles Muscadelle Gaillac Doux - France, Southwest France, Gaillac Doux (11/28/2007)
  A very attractive nose of honey and some spice, but despite these "heavy" elements it promises freshness on the palate. And the promise is fulfilled: very sweet but crunchy acidity, very moreish despite the sugar. Nice!

Posted from CellarTracker

I've had excellent, good-value sparklers from there also, in past decades.

Lots of cool things happen in Jura. below, one of the more unusual. (I apologize if I've hackneyed this quotation by posting it too often. I got it from a very standard, popular 1950s print source on related matters -- Waverly Root, Liebling's mentor -- not from online.)

The eccentricities of the Jura streams are vertical as well as horizontal. They have a disconcerting habit of suddenly disappearing into sinkholes ... and at last, when the ground drops away, of gushing forth again from the side of a cliff in what is known as a resurgence... This phenomenon was dramatized in 1901 when dwellers near the “source” of the Loue were delighted to discover that it seemed to have turned to absinthe -- weak in flavor, but nevertheless quite palatable. Two days before, the Pernod factory at Pontarlier, where absinthe was made, had burned down, and some 200,000 gallons of it had poured into the Doubs. It was therefore deduced that the Loue was a resurgence of part of the waters of the Doubs.

Waverly Root, The Food of France, Knopf, 1958 (LCC 57-10310). Recommended. (Also incidentally one of thousands of mainstream US references to absinthe before those listed, presumably by recent absinthe hobbyists, under Wikpiedia's entry, which mostly date from after 1990.)

Max, nice clip! I hadn't seen it before, so my thanks! I've only had one Jura sparkler (and liked it, but can't remember what it was). But their Savagnin and Ploussard have always enthralled me - and apparently so does their Chardonnay.

-O

I agree. Jura Cardonnay can be superb and unique in its style being strongly marked by the terroir. Indeed I have found those I have drunk closer to Jura's Savagnin in flavour than to white burgundy from Chablis or the nearby Côte d'Or (see my note on a Jura Chard from Labet in the Chardonnay OM); a sure sign of terroir character coming through.

Indeed I have found those I have drunk closer to Jura's Savagnin in flavour than to white burgundy from Chablis or the nearby Côte d'Or (see my note on a Jura Chard from Labet in the Chardonnay OM); a sure sign of terroir character coming through.

Yes. Either that or similar production methods across grapes coming through.

But, in general I agree. Terroir really does seem to speak loudly in these Jura wines.

Re: similar production methods.

My answer to that with Jura Chard and Savagnin is that I have also noticed this similarity in the Jura wines from Rijckaert, who also produces in the Mâconnais. He presumably uses similar production methods for his Chards in both locations but their tastes are quite different.

Rijckaert..Mâconnais

Yes, but that's extreme

I have no doubt that terroir is important for the Jura wines, in fact that is why I love them. But I do think that for some producers the oxidative style (and who knows what else) also contributes to similarities across grapes.

Re: oxidative style -

Yes, that is true with many producers but neither Labet nor Rijckaert produce in that style.

Precison re Laby:

He does apparently produce some oxidative cuvées with "voile", but the mainstream Chardonnay and Savagnin which I tasted and bought (the latter) are non-oxidative. As far as I know, Rijckaert does not do an oxidative cuvée or did not, when I last talked to him.