Tasted with Fabien Duperray in his new place in Romanèche-Thorins
Domaine Jules Desjourneys
Clos des Bernoux
38 rue des Jacques
71570 Romanèche-Thorins
Tel: +33 3 85 33 85 88
www.julesdesjourneys.fr
More reports with Domaine Jules Desjourneys.
Fabien:
“I’m up to 25 hectares now, just like DRC – it’s enough – the extra is a broad swathe of new vines in the heights of Moulin-à-Vent, including Rochegrès. It’s 37 years since there was such a large transaction up there. I’m more towards the end of my winemaking journey than the start but it wasn’t something that I could turn down. My family had their domaine in the area since only the 1950s – but compared to families that trace their lines back to the 1700s here – I’m a foreigner!
“We will taste 2019 reds… All bottled close to one year – the bottling of the 2020s was started about 2 months ago – so with about 21 months of elevage. I’m happy with the yield but it’s about making good wine; clearly we made not very much in 2021 but the important thing was what we made should be good!”
The wines…
Nothing seems more satisfying to Fabien than admiring the corks that he pulls from his bottles – ‘You know this lot I bought was rejected by Cheval Blanc – because they were too expensive at €2.5 each – and their bottles are €500, not €30!’ It’s part pride and part the salesman talking but every angle of his wines is considered and in 2019 there’s nothing in his range that I wouldn’t be proud to open from my own cellar! There’s not an address whose whites I’d rather have!
Last year I missed out on his whites – we made amends this year. But first:
Micoux (foot of Py) and Corcelettes in this mix. Changes in the future here – “I have another 1.1 ha of VV in Micoux – on high – which I think superior to Corcelette – maybe that Micoux will be its own cuvée in the future – it reminds me of Javernières. This one is about 80% Micaut already…”
Broad – inviting, a positive suggestion of reduction. Ooh – vibrantly energetic, pure, minerally structured – there are lots of adjectives I could use for this juicy wine of beautiful fruit – but I’ll stick with just one word – Buy!
2019 Chénas Dernier Judgement
This wine needs a bit more aeration. The nose is slowly coming to the fore and more into focus – starting red and slightly hard – but softening and showing some of Fabien’s spice and maybe a little sauvage angle too. Hmm – vibrant again and more saline too – this has a great, great panorama of finishing flavour – a smaller wine than the Morgon to start but with an absolutely great finish…
2019 Moulin à Vent
Quite a modest colour. Faintly reductive, less faintly spiced. A more supple shape, silky texture but with some intensity to this flavour too. A finishing flavour that vibrates and subtly rests, haunting the palate. More sophisticated than the Chénas but there’s a bit more character in the Chénas today…
Higher tones and more open – again that spicy MaV element – here showing the perfumed clarity of fruit that was missing from the previous wine. Ouch, what a fluid, energetic, structural wine – an effusive communicator. It somehow still manages to grow and grow on the palate during the finishing flavours. Grand Vin!
Morriers and Chapelle du Bois assembled – ‘I don’t care! – I want to make the greatest wine and I think the assembly is the greatest wine!’
Here’s a nose of mineral freshness yet a certain tightness – a suggestion of delivering something great but to start with it’s hard to see – then, with air, comes a fine acid-red fruit. Wide, supple, seamless texture, then so intense – that’s another great finish – I would say haunting but it’s too intense for that. Hard to choose the winner from these last two wines – ying and yang – they are certainly not the same – but if I could have only one bottle I’d happily settle it by tossing a coin. Bravo. Also Grand Vin…
That’s a potpourri of aroma – really perfumed – slowly delivering a finer and more overt perfume of fruit mixed with violets. Super shape and energy – a subtle drag from the tannin but there’s no grain here. Super acid-led intensity that dominates the ripeness of fruit. Wow!
Les Whites:
“It’s a vintage that doesn’t play on its acidity but rather the dry extract that it brings. It’s a democratic vintage – it works for the wider consumer and the expert/amateur almost to the same level.”
Here is plenty of freshness – almost a sherbet style of energy. Energy, width, growing intensity – never too broad or fat or with rigour – just a great BJVB! Incredibly persistent! I have never tasted better Beaujolais Blanc!
2019 Macon-Prissé
A hint of Maconnais ripeness but also with clarity and shape. Gorgeously mouth-watering – the minerality has a small clack of rigour but the juicy flavour more than balances this. Clean energetic but finely boned and almost chalky in the finish. Simply excellent wine.
A little more compact – here the spine is cushioned by a more overt oak note. Also more gas bottled with this – but what a cascade of juicy, yellow-citrus – slowly becoming more serious in the finish – perfumed even. That will be great but wait 3, possibly 5 years…
A very faint savoury reduction but transient and then comes the width and clarity that is the key of this wine. Here is a little gas again but even more intensely flavoured yet finely structural than the last – perhaps as it lacks the overt oaky cushioning. Keep this one 3 to 5 years too – but because you should, not just to wait for the oak to fade – grand Mâcon!
Ooh – deep, vibrant, slightly green-citrus energy to this nose. Vibrant, faintly CO2. Again, the intensity and energy could make you think of Riesling – but broader and more structurally secure. Great, great wine.
2019 Saint Veran
More classic St.Veran but that’s the more visible aromatic wood that is wrapping up the minerals and fruit here. Fabulous in the mouth – the shape, the direction the mouth-watering then vibrant flavour panorama. Mineral, mineral finishing – long, long finishing too. What a finish. Another that I would keep longer because of the oak cmponent.
50% from the north and 50% southern fruit – so half clay, half schist soils.
Again there is oak but this time more embedded in the minerality of the aroma. Here is fluidity – airy yet growing in confidence and intensity. A wine that haunts the palate with ethereal flavours. Still some oak – but I can’t critique it – it’s that good. One of the best whites of this year… Finishing with a rasp of citrus bitters…
Pure clay here – no schist this time… All the wines of here were labelled as Pouilly-Fuissé until 1950.
Airy – extra width here – you have to search harder but the clarity of fruit aromas here are more attractive and complex than the previous. The make-up is less gauche and finer. More width and impact – a citrus impact – almost of bitters but there’s no associated texture. The bitters resurfacing in the finish – Chevalier-like finishing. Very great!
The oak a little more forward again but with energy and minerality. Too much wood – ‘no because it’s great wood – wink!’ More direct, lithe muscle, great shape and texture – a vibrant but controlled width of finishing flavour. Different again and equally grand…
Just 390 bottles.
More vertical aromas of great depth and height – here is a perfumed wine, and not a bit perturbed by the accent of the barrel. More mouth-filling really energetic and growing with mouth-watering intensity. So intense, with stony fruit finishing. Wow!
A different aromatic shape – deeper, wider, a little shyer in the higher notes. The most direct, the most ‘Chevalier or Perrières’ in style, such energy – wow wine and holds fabulously…
Wow – the best perfume – the first with more florals and a suggestion of minerality. Hmm – mouth-filling, airy , open, still wonderfully intense. This is not, today, Fabien’s favourite wine – but it’s mine – purity, purity, purity – wow! The perfect fruit!