Jura's Pelican Takes Flight

Guillaume d'Angerville, owner of Domaine Marquis d'Angerville in Volnay, has embraced the challenges of the Jura indigenous grape varieties and its terroir, which is so different from his Côte d'Or homeland.

The 2019 vintage sees the release of 11 different Domaine du Pélican wines, having begun with just three cuvées.

Domaine du Pélican was founded in 2012 after d'Angerville and his long-term Volnay cellarmaster François Duvivier took on 5ha (12.5 acres) of vineyards and the winery of Château de Chavanes in Montigny-les-Arsures, near Arbois, along with another vineyard plot above the town. D'Angerville had been searching for several years for a second property, in particular to focus on white wines.

"My initial idea was that I wanted to do something outside of Burgundy, outside my comfort zone, but close enough that we could supervise entirely the estate while taking care of Volnay."

He was inspired to investigate Jura after tasting blind a 2005 Chardonnay Les Bruyères from Stéphane Tissot at Le Taillevent restaurant in Paris.

It took four years to find the ideal vineyards. The Chavanes vineyards were planted in 2000 and had been farmed biodynamically, as d'Angerville's Volnay estate has been since 2006. And at the same time, the wonderfully sited vineyard, Le Grand Curoulet, owned by natural wine producer Jean-Marc Brignot became available – Brignot was leaving the Jura and had badly neglected his vineyards.

From this start, the aim was to build up to around 15ha vineyards all within 5km of the winery in the Arbois appellation. In 2014, the vigneron Jacques Puffeney, known for his legendary Vins Jaunes and reds, and based just 200 meters up the road from Pélican, negotiated with them to take over most of his vineyards on his retirement after 50 vintages.

After the Pélican team had converted these traditionally farmed vineyards to biodynamics, three years later Puffeney was sufficiently impressed to allow them to take on his famous Bérangère vineyard, 0.3ha of prime old Trousseau. This was the "cherry on the cake", as d'Angerville put it.

With almost 14ha of productive vineyards, just over two-thirds planted to white grapes, Pélican was rapidly outgrowing its cellar space. In December 2020 they moved to new cellars, built into the slope at the base of Clos Saint-Laurent, the main Chavanes vineyard.

Duvivier comments that the new cellar has been designed for great flexibility. He makes the one-hour journey from Volnay regularly and manages the site together with a local team.

Duvivier and d'Angerville found Burgundy and Jura to have quite different growing conditions, and any prior preconceptions were immediately blown out of the water. Even plowing methods are different in the Jura, due to the heavier marly, clay-rich soils and double the rainfall of Burgundy.

In 2012, to their surprise, the Chardonnay in En Barbi, a south-facing, sheltered vineyard at about 360m altitude, gave the same potential alcohol as their Meursault Santenots vineyard in Burgundy. Originally the pair had envisioned completing the Burgundy harvest, taking a few days off and then tackling the Jura harvest, but that was not to be.

The newly replanted Grand Curoulet vineyard along with En Barbi provide two contrasting, single-vineyard Chardonnays besides the main blend, the three wines displaying quite different Jura Chardonnay expressions.

Due to disease and failure to produce, only half a hectare of old-vine Savagnin could be rescued in Grand Curoulet and the rest is young vines that Pélican planted in 2015 and 2016 following extensive drainage works. A north-facing breezy slope, it has classic Jura soils of varied-coloured marls, including prized grey marl, ideal for Savagnin.

Sold on Savagnin

Duvivier lights up when discussing Savagnin, which seems to have exceeded both their expectations and d'Angerville enthuses that there is "no limit of what you can do with Savagnin – it's so versatile and wonderful to work with".

For the replanting Duvivier obtained mass selection cuttings of Savagnin from two biodynamic Jura estates – Domaine de la Pinte and Domaine Pignier. By touching coincidence, Duvivier learned from Antoine Pignier that his father had obtained Savagnin cuttings from the original owner of Grand Curoulet, Robert Aviet, who – like many winemakers of his era – doubled as a vine nurseryman.

Among the 2019 releases are four cracking Savagnin wines: the Ouillé (ouillé means topped-up, as opposed to aged oxidatively in the typical Jura way); the Grand Curoulet Ouillé; Macération Pelliculaire, a skin-contact white; and Brut S Zéro, a traditional method sparkling wine, labelled Vin de France as the Crémant du Jura appellation rules require dominant Chardonnay.

The Grand Curoulet Savagnin shows huge aging potential with intensity and vibrant acidity, 2019 being a low-yielding vintage – Duvivier also notes the salinity, which comes from the marl soils and both owners rate the quality highly, despite the young vines.

The adventure of making a skin-contact white, began in 2018, the wine being left in tank for two weeks on the skins following the end of fermentation. Although not an extreme "orange wine", full of spice and energy it brings a new audience for Pélican, and like so many Savagnins is ideal for adventurous food pairings.

The whites are aged mainly in 500-liter barrels, although from 2020 Pélican invested in several different sizes of foudres enabling them to mature about 50 percent in these larger volume barrels.

The S Brut Zero is made in a natural and innovative way from a base of 90 percent 2018 Savagnin. It was bottled with 10 percent fermenting Savagnin must from the 2019 harvest to provide the sugar and yeast for the second fermentation. With nothing added and only the lees taken away at disgorgement after 13 months, the result is a creamy sparkling Savagnin, a pure lemon-flavored delight with great energy.

Rebel reds from experienced hands

D'Angerville’s original plan was to focus on whites and above all avoid comparison with his Volnays, but he had little choice as the Clos Saint-Laurent vineyard is mainly planted with Pinot Noir on an ideal slope. Over a deep grey marl subsoil lies limestone scree and the altitude reaches 380m.

The only red made at the start was the blend, Les Trois Cépages, as there was too little of the local varieties. From 60 percent Pinot Noir, 35 percent Trousseau and 5 percent Poulsard, d'Angerville describes it as the "spirit of Pélican", with the blending process fulfilling his wish to work out of his comfort zone.

Year after year, Trois Cépages provides the most attractively Jurassien expression of this estate. Like all the reds, it is from destemmed grapes, macerated for a relatively short time, with occasional pump-overs and pressed after two weeks. Aging is in a mixture of small and large barrels.

Puffeney's vineyards enabled them to think beyond the blend. And now there is a vibrant Poulsard mainly from an old Puffeney vineyard and a superb vineyard selection of Béranger Trousseau (so-named to distinguish from Puffeney's Bérangère), with undoubted aging potential.

Duvivier had to persuade d'Angerville to make a varietal Pinot Noir and the first was from the superb 2018 vintage; in 2019 it became the single-vineyard Clos Saint-Laurent. The wine is sublime as are all these reds, no surprise from this pair, who have a wealth of experience in producing excellent reds.

Arbois traditions come home to roost

The Pélican name and the label showing the bird feeding its young combine metaphor with brainwave. François Duvivier, very much d'Angerville's partner in this venture, observed that the Arbois town symbol had never been used for a wine estate.

The symbol harks back to when the Dukes of Burgundy owned Jura, and when it was fashionable to have birds as pets. Mary of Burgundy was given a pelican by her husband Maximilian of Hapsburg and paraded it on a lead in Arbois. The bird did not survive the cold, but this does not deter Duvivier or d'Angerville; instead the symbol inspires and amuses them.

The next project waiting in the wings is Vin Jaune, although there may also be an oxidative Savagnin. The first trial of aging 2015 Savagnin oxidatively under the veil of yeast failed. But with a little help from Puffeney and some of his own Vin Jaune barrels, from 2016 there has been Savagnin aged successfully under the veil. The first Vin Jaune is due to be launched in 2023.