Profile: Domaine Claudie Jobard (Demigny)

17.12.2013billn

1-DSC02102-001Readers will have met Claudie before – either in these pages, or in my book – of-course she is Bernard Repolt’s ‘better half’ as winemaker at Remoissenet in Beaune. Quite a lot of you will also know that her mother, Laurence, was winemaker/enologist for almost 30 years at Joseph Drouhin in Beaune; less well-known is the family domaine situated in Demigny, just east of Puligny-Montrachet.

It’s actually quite hard to determine which is the main family business for the Jobards as they have also been nurserymen, producing vines, for over 60 years – currently over 700,000 vines per year – this business is also in Demigny but on the other side of the village, for this first-time visitor, the nursery was easier to find than the domaine – I should have used Google!

The domaine was created by Claudie’s mother and father in the 1970s, and centred on wines in the Côte Chalonnaise. Claudie joined in 2002, working in both the nursery and the domaine. In 2011, 1.5 hectares of vines in the Côte d’Or came into the domaine from the line of Claudie’s grandmother and mother, who were ‘Billards’ from Domaine Gabriel Billard – eight generations of Billards have now worked these vines – this brought Claudie’s domaine up to 9.5 hectares, 8 hectares of which are in Rully.

Whilst the Jobard domaine may have been created in 1970, their first bottle sales were only in 2004 – a little after Claudie joined – the product of their vines previously being sold to the négociants. Claudie actually spends more time on the Jobard domaines, than she does on her other job in Beaune. Today the domaine is producing (with all this hail, what is an average year?) about 45,000 bottles annually, roughly 50% of which are exported from France.

Claudie describes their vineyard work as ‘raisonnée’, and some of the plough is even undertaken by horse in Pommard – I fear that the price of a bottle of Rully doesn’t support horses these days!

The wines

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The following were sampled in Demigny on the 29th May 2012, together with David Lloyd, winemaker at eldridge-estate.com.au. We tasted the bottled 2011s, though Claudie noted with sadness that there were no 1er Crus from Rully to show – the hail killed them off in that year. This has been a constant theme in the last years; No Rully 1ers in 2011, and whilst Rully was fine in 2012, Pommard devastated by hail (10-14 hl/ha here) and Pommard was of-course hit again in 2013…

For all the vineyard difficulties, these are a classy set of wines, the Pommards are simply top-drawer.

2011 Claudie Jobard, Rully Montagne La Folie (Blanc)
From a 2.45 hectare plot of 45 year-old vines.
The nose is floral, high-toned and pretty. Round in the mouth, nicely balanced and with good power too – I like the acidity. Stony and mineral in the finish. This is quite good.

2011 Claudie Jobard, Rully La Chaume
From a single plot of ~2.5 hectares of ~50 year-old vines near Mercurey. One part has lots of limestone, the bottom of the parcel less-so. The more productive clones have been re-trained, in order to reduce their vigour. ~20% new wood in elevage and a light filtration – bottled in July.
High-toned, very pretty red fruits with a P1. Plenty of acidity here but with intense pinot fruit. Again there’s a stony element in the strong finish.

2011 Claudie Jobard, Beaune 1er Epenotes
These Côte de Beaune wines had been bottled in January.
Soft and friendly with P2 and lovely fruits behind. There’s a little more tannin here, and acidity is just a little forward but it enhances a lovely ‘crunchy’ fruit. Fine, slowly mouth-watering length.
2011 Claudie Jobard, Pommard Les Vaumuriens
Claudie agreed about the pyrazine note on the Beaune, so carefully rinsed our glasses for this wine made from the produce of almost 70 year-old vines.
Lovely fruit aroma, deeper-toned than the Beaune – no obvious pyrazine here. Lovely in the mouth, there is (of-course!) tannin but the beautiful fresh fruit is the main act here. Very nice indeed!
2011 Claudie Jobard, Pommard 1er Les Charmots
These vines are approaching their 100th birthday, and the ploughing is done with a horse, though Claudie notes that it’s a hard parcel to cultivate.
The nose is deep and interesting with perfumed flowers – the last drops in the glass offer-up perfectly focused violets. Full, round, concentrated and rich. Simply a delightful wine.

Domaine Claudie Jobard
5 route de Beaune
71150, Demigny
Tel : +33 (0)3 85 49 46 81
www.domaineclaudiejobard.fr

Leave a Reply to Michael WarnerCancel reply

There is one response to “Profile: Domaine Claudie Jobard (Demigny)”

  1. Michael Warner16th January 2014 at 4:48 pmPermalinkReply

    Hi Bill,

    Your link to the domaine website is broken… but interesting new domaine for me !

    Thanks,

    Michael

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