2023 Domaine Pêcheur, Cuvée des Trois Cépages, AOC Côtes du Jura, France.
The elegant, limpid pale ruby/garnet hued and delicately crafted Côtes du Jura Rouge “Cuvée des Trois Cépages” by Domaine Pêcheur is a pretty equal blend of Poulsard, Pinot Noir and Trousseau that delivers a smooth and fresh palate of bright cherry, strawberry, brambly huckleberry and burnt orange fruits, along with subtle earthiness, a stony element, briar spice, faint rose petal florals minty herbs and a light sense of cedary wood. This wine really captures the soul of the Jura region in the glass, it delivers a classic performance and is definitely a great wine to start exploring this unique winegrowing area. The domaine has many older vine parcels scattered in the slopes of the Côtes du Jura and does a range of small lot handcrafted wines, these include single varietal offerings of Chardonnay, Poulsard, Trousseau, Pinot Noir and Savagnin, along with a couple of blends, like this one, as well as a Crémant du Jura, which gets a full three years on the yeast. The whites, mainy done with oxidative complexity, still are vibrant and mineral driven, but will mostly only appeal to the hardcore Jura fans, though the reds are more crowd pleasing, especially this very easy quaffable Cuvée des Trois Cépages (Three Grapes Cuvée) that enjoys a slight chill and rustic cuisine.
The Domaine Pêcheur, founded in 1976, is owned by Christian, who studied at Lycée Viticole in Beaune, and Patricia Pêcheur, started with a tiny parcel of vines in the Darbonnay area of the Jura and now produce a classic selection of regional offerings, including a traditional Château-Chalon Vin Jaune and lighter framed and delicious reds like this one. The Pêcheurs, according to their importer Rosenthal Wine Merchants, currently have eight hectares with vineyards primarily situated on the hillside slopes of the villages of Darbonnay and Passenans with an extension into the fabled town of Voiteur for the production of their Château-Chalon. Rosenthal also notes that their vineyards are planted to the classic Jura mix of grape types, which includes Chardonnay, Savagnin, Ploussard, Trousseau and Pinot Noir. The average age of the vineyards here is between 35 to 50 years, which makes for good concentration and complexity in the Pêcheur wines, and the soils are a stony, pebbly mix of limestone, clay and dolomite that adds to the mineral intensity and terroir influence. The Pêcheur whites, as Rosenthal notes, are all barrel-fermented and barrel-aged with their Chardonnay spending two years in barrel without topping up or “non-ouillé” in the traditional sherry like Jura style, while the reds are gently macerated, mostly all de-stemed and then generally aged in small, older barrels for at least one year. I really like this Cuvée des Trois Cépages and recommend it to Jura fans, as well as those that haven’t yet experienced the region in any meaningful way.
($30 Est.) 91 Points, grapelive