Dame Dench

Puffeney 2006 Arbois Poulsard “M” (Jura) – Fetid and faded, bringing a collection of vague stenches and lingering miasmas together for no apparent purpose. I’m going to conclude that this is a bad bottle, because it’s impossible to conceive that this is how it was intended to taste. (1/11)

Noy-ha-ha

Overnoy 2005 Arbois Pupillin (Jura) – Loaded with bretty stench (or maybe it’s reductive; frankly, I’m thirteen jibs to the sheet by this point in the evening and could be drinking stealth Franzia for all that I know, yet my notes indicate surety that there’s brettanomyces, and I probably shouldn’t second-guess. One will either be able to get past that or not. The wine underneath the assreek has the sort of breezy power that lovers of syrupy wines don’t think something this light can actually have. Well, they’re wrong. Potentially fabulous, if one is not sensitive to whatever’s stinking up the joint, or if there’s bottle variation…which isn’t exactly unheard of at this house. (11/10)

Semi-Chamade

Bornard 2007 Arbois Pupillin Ploussard “La Chamade” (Jura) – Delicate and sweetly pretty, like a country girl in gingham and braids, or perhaps a Norman Rockwell portrait of same. Succulent. (11/10)

Arbois-thers in arms

Tissot 2007 Arbois Poulsard “Vieilles Vignes” (Jura) – Wine geeks often express the notion that the wines of the Jura are difficult to understand (for novices, one presumes). That may be true for the whites that play in realms oxidative, but I’m less sure it’s true for the reds that don’t. This one, for example, has been plenty popular with aficionados and newbies alike, over multiple vintages. And what’s not to like? Appealing, pale red fruit of purity and lightness, paired with a delicate structure…unless one is a fan of jam, and exclusively so, it’s hard to register much negativity here. But there is a difference in the way that new and old hands approach this wine, and it’s this: first-encounterers want to gulp it. That’s a compliment, of course, but the experienced instead want to spend a lot of time poring over its details. Why? It’s the nervous trembling to the fruit, the sense of air and space within the wine, the organoleptic version of a musical silence that permits and encourages such close examination. (5/10)

Locke-d out

Bornard 2007 Arbois Pupillin Trousseau “Le Ginglet” (Jura) – Wines like this have such a small margin for error, it seems to me. The broad, brown earthiness and faded fruit is rarely more than a step away from early decrepitude, and in the wrong hands – or the wrong vintage – can easily fall over, dead. Not so here. Lithe earth laced with fruit, rather than the reverse, dusty and delicate, but with insistence and persistence. Some funk. Lots of dust. Disappears very quickly. (5/10)

Jurassic chardonnay

Petit “Domaine de la Renardière” 2006 Arbois-Pupillin Chardonnay (Jura) – Prickly, but from energy rather than acidity (though it has that, too), with a rich complexity of stony aromas (both the fruit and the rocks themselves), a light wash of oxidation that adds further complexity, a good deal of concentration, and a long finish. Very, very engaging. (7/09)

Puffeney the magic savagnin

Puffeney 2002 Arbois Savagnin (Jura) – “Is this sherry?” asks the first person who tastes this without knowing its identity. A very reasonable guess, though the wine’s bigger than most sherries with this particular bony profile, and there is rather more limestoney, pale green fruit – especially on the finish – than any dry sherry of my acquaintance would dare show. This achieves terrific presence and pressure without ever seeming heavy, which is quite a trick, and as each layer of intensity is peeled back, a new one emerges with ever-so-slight shifts in emphasis. Fantastic stuff. (3/09)