Bourgogne Côte d'Or Vieilles Vignes AOC 2024

A coolly styled Chardonnay with fine richness and taut minerality. The oak stays in the background, toasty aromas are absent. What remains is a transparent structure with dense texture and length.

The grapes grow on old vines in the Côte de Beaune. Domaine Rémi Jobard farms nine hectares in Meursault and has worked without artificial fertilizers and pesticides since 1994, without herbicides since 1998. The vine rows are tended by hand, cover-cropped and unfertilized, and cordon pruning keeps yields low.

Pure varietal Chardonnay. Grapes picked in the morning are pressed for at least six hours, those picked in the afternoon often overnight, a full twelve hours, always with the lowest possible pressure. This keeps bitter compounds and coarse phenols out of the wine. Ageing takes around 15 months in 600-liter casks from cooper Stockinger, made of French, Austrian and Slavonian oak, of which around a fifth is renewed each year. The wine then rests in tank and is bottled unfiltered.

Pale yellow with greenish reflections. On the nose green apple, lemon and white peach, along with a restrained oak spice. The palate entry is dense and clear, carried by lively acidity and mineral tension, the finish stays lean and long. 13.0% vol., dry.

Pan-fried pikeperch on lentils, scallops with butter-lemon sauce, Bresse chicken in cream sauce or a dry Comté.

The estate is Ecocert-certified and converted long before organic viticulture became a topic in Burgundy. The wine gains its stability through two winters of ageing rather than technical intervention. It needs time to open up.