Domaine Les Matheny Arbois Chardonnay, Jura, France 2019
Few in the Jura are as talented as Emeric Foléat of the tiny Les Matheny domaine in Arbois. Having worked for eight years under the legendary Jacques Puffeney, who taught him the ultimate value in embracing risk and trusting the quality of his fruit to do its thing in the cellar without coercion, Emeric farms 3 hectares in Arbois without the use of synthetic chemicals and raises his wines in a small cinderblock shed devoid of modern gadgetry. Emeric takes each harvest as it comes, vinifying and aging certain parcels separately if the notion strikes him, keeping a cask or two under voile for an extra-long time if the underlying material proves worthy, and topping up his barrels occasionally, partially, and based purely on taste and instinct. Minute additions of sulfur, and even then only sometimes, are the only adjustments he makes to his bold, assertive, deeply personal creations.
These are wines free of shackles—simultaneously tough and bare-knuckled whites, brazenly structured reds that scoff at the dainty, almost apologetic extraction common for such thin-skinned varieties. While both enologist and marketer alike may consider Les Matheny a baffling operation, those who value character in wine will find a deep well of authenticity and beauty here.
This wine was birthed from an experiment on a particularly hardy parcel of old-vines Chardonnay from Montigny-lès-Arsures (Puffeney’s home village, known affectionately as “The Capital of Trousseau”) in the 2011 vintage, letting it evolve in a 600-liter barrel for a full six years without topping it up at all. A full-on oxidative twang permeates the whole affair, yet so much else is taking place that it still feels like a backdrop: grilled pineapple, apple tart, and pork broth, all doused in salt—and, interestingly, a subtle autolytic note reminiscent of extended-lees-aged Champagne. Immense acidity and lift infuse everything with crackling electricity. This is the kind of wine that could only come from the Jura—a place where mindful negligence yields poetry.