Domaine Du Pelican Arbois Chardonnay 2013
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Wine & Spirits
Domaine du Pélican, founded in 2012 by winemaker François Duvivier and Guillaume d’Angerville of Volnay fame, produced a poised and elegant chardonnay in the winery’s second vintage. Light baking spices dust the flavors of golden apple, Asian pear and vanilla bean, pillowed by a toasty richness. Bright acidity entwines the flavors to form a silky and seamless texture, while a line of fine minerality draws the flavors to a long and harmonious finish. Delicious now, this will be even better with a few years of age.
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2018-
Robert
Parker
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Spectator
This sent him off on a five year search to find a choice location in the Jura. He consulted with a well-known geologist to find ideal vineyards. In the end, he and Francois Duvivier purchased two domaines, one with well tended vines and another where the vineyards were in need of some rehabilitation. At Chateau Chavanes in Montigny-les-Arsures, they created a state of the art winery surrounded by 5 hectares of biodynamically farmed vines that had been impeccably replanted 10 years prior by former owner Francois de Chavanes. The domaine is supported by an additional 5 hectares of chemically-free vines formerly farmed by Jean-Marc Brignot at a site of high-quality geology and exposure.
He named it Domaine du Pélican, a reference to the pelican on the crest of the city of Arbois.
All of Pélican's wines are currently made in a topped up, non-oxidative style.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
On the foothills of the Jura Mountains, just east of the Cote de Beaune on the Switzerland border, the Jura wine-producing zone is recognized for its unique reds, as well as its particular and diverse styles of whites.
Though borrowed from their neighbor Burgundy, Chardonnay and Pinot noir have been growing in Jura since the Middle Ages. But here the altitude, topography, climate and clay-rich, marl soils support a different style of Pinot noir, not to mention its other deeply-colored, full-bodied indigenous reds, Poulsard and Trousseau.
Considering area under vine, growers here favor Chardonnay for its consistency and reliability; it comprises almost half of Jura's vineyard acreage. However, Jura Chardonnay is anything but boring; its many offbeat styles are part of what make region’s wines so distinctive. It is used for Cremant (sparkling), Macvin (a fortified wine), as well as fine examples at the quality level of Burgundy.
Jura also has a unique oxidative style for Chardonnay but is better recognized for its similarly-styled “vin jaune,” meaning ‘yellow wine,’ which is made from the indigenous variety, Savagnin. Vin jaune is made using techniques similar to those used to make Sherry.
For all of its wines, Jura favors a traditional, natural and often organic style in viticulture and winemaking.