Domaine Jean Fery Bourgogne ‘Les Monatines’ Blanc 2018
Pure deep fruit, rounded with just enough oak to make your mouth water. Floral and citric, but mouth-filling and long.
Domaine Jean Fery
Nestled in the Hautes Cotes village of Echevronne, the Domaine Jean Fery is the master plan of Jean-Louis Fery, the latest in a wine line dating back to the mid-1800s. From 1994, with the help of Alain Meunier of the Domaine Jean-Jacques Confuron, the Domaine Jean Fery went bio (without actually claiming the certification) and started expanding their vineyard holdings. From the 2006 harvest, Pascal Marchand took the reins, continuing the domain's quest for quality and integrity.
BURGUNDY 2018 VINTAGE
There has been talk over the past year of the 2018 vintage in Burgundy being one of the greatest of all time. Comparisons with the mythical 1947, and all that. But let’s be careful and take a closer look.
We’ve tasted some marvelous wines, both white and red, and from all of the appellation levels. Purity and concentration would be the key words across the board.
But lest we forget, 2018 was the hottest vintage in Burgundy since 2003. And frankly, we were expecting wines like we got in 2003: flabby whites and Cote du Rhone-like reds. But that did not happen. And the secret to understanding 2018 Burgundy lies in understanding the difference between these two very hot years.
If you look at 2018 from start to finish, not only was it hot, it was dry: 50% less precipitation than the annual average over the past 30 years. However, if you were here in the early part of the year, you’ll certainly remember the rain.
After a very dry summer in 2017, winter 2017-18 was wet. It rained nearly every day through March and into April. And the vine was slow to bud.
That all changed in the middle of April. Wet soil and higher temperatures brought on explosive growth in the vineyards that the vignerons had a tough time keeping up with. In a week we went from bud burst to unfurled leaves.
The first flowers burst in mid-May. The crop set regularly with very little disruption, and summer settled in. The early wet conditions followed by April’s warmth saw the onset of mildew, but the fungus never stood a chance.
It was a hot and sunny summer. Some would say it was a heat wave and a drought. And we started to see signs of stress in vineyards in certain sectors. Things were better where there was a little rain. But August was bone dry. In fact, there was no rain from June 15th to the end of October.
It was about this time that comparisons to 2015 cropped up. You could see ripeness rapidly approaching, and there was talk of harvest starting at the end of August.
The vines were incredibly healthy; no moisture means no threat from mildew or odium. No rot. Good ripeness.
And, for the first time since 2009….a normal yield! So, let the harvest begin!
And it did, in the last days of August. What was most astonishing right from the start was that the perceived acidity levels seem OK. Granted, there’s no malic acid, but the levels of tartaric acid seem to be compensating, and there is an over-all impression of balance.
Also amazing was the amount of juice the crop produced. Not only was the yield bigger than the past 10 years’ average, but the amount of juice set a record for Burgundy. So there will be a lot of 2018 around.
And all this in a year that felt more like the south of Spain than Burgundy as we know it. The only thing we can attribute the quality of 2018 to is the abundant winter rains, and the vine’s ability to go searching for water when it needs it.
BOURGOGNE BLANC
REGIONAL APPELLATION OF BURGUNDY
Generally considered the generic Burgundy wine, appellation Bourgogne, both red and white, can also be thought of as the model of what Burgundy wine should be. It is produced in almost all of the winemaking communes throughout Burgundy, and from the same grape varieties as the more specific appellations. This means that simple Bourgogne has the potential to express terroir and vintage. But because it can be produced by blending wines sourced from across the region, the quality and specificity of this appellation can be questionable. On the other hand, many Bourgogne are produced within a single commune and some even from a single vineyard. So as with all Burgundy wine, you need to know its pedigree and who made it.
The appellation Bourgogne is restricted to wines grown within the defined limits of the appellation:
Yonne 54 communes
Côte d’Or 91 communes
Saône et Loire 154 communes
Wines
Bourgogne Blanc is made from chardonnay, and the grape expresses itself differently in different parts of the region. Color is generally pale gold, ideally with good density and limpidity. Oak aging can add yellow tones, and vintage variations can shift the color spectrum. Bourgogne grown in the Yonne department and the Côte d’Auxerrois tend to share characteristics with the wines of Chablis, being earthy with a dusty, smoky minerality. In the Côte d’Or, Bourgogne whites are rare in the Côte de Nuits, but bountiful in the Côte de Beaune where they tend to be nutty and honeyed with lemony acidity. Further south in the Côte Chalonnaise and the department of the Saône et Loire you find riper, more floral wines with flinty minerality.
Terroirs
This wine is generally produced on sites at the foot of the slopes, but the nature of the soil varies according to each geographical situation. In the Côte-d'Or the soils are whitish or light grey marls and marly limestones, deep and not especially stony. The Yonne, in contrast, offers sloping calcareous sites, sometimes chalky as in the Tonnerrois district or on Kimmeridgian limestone as in Chablis and the Auxerrois, while in the Chalonnais and Mâconnais the broken landscape pushes up soils composed of limestone, clay and marl. And then in the southern Saône-et-Loire, a granitic component.
Color
White – Chardonnay
Production surface area
1 hectare (ha) = 2.4 acres
776 ha
Food
Bourgogne Blanc is among the most adaptable and food-friendly wines in the world. It pairs with traditional white wine dishes like poultry, fish and shellfish, but it is amazingly good with seeming opposites like spicy dishes and oriental seasonings. We prefer it to red wine with some of the stronger cheeses. And of course, it is the aperitif wine of choice in Burgundy.