Tuesday, October 11, 2011

2009 Alexandre Jouveaux ”Préty”

(Wild wine)

Blend: 100% Chardonnay
Where: Macon, Uchizy
Age of wines: 75-80 years
Vineyard: South exposure – 0,54ha
Production: 1.250 bottles per year
Other: Dangerous badass Natural Wine with hardly any sulphur
Glass: Zalto Burgundy

What I mostly like about the wines from Alexandre Jouveaux is their imperfection. I would imagine a lot of tasters would find his wines too wild, demanding, unruly, particular and even volatile in their acidity. His wines even have yeast sediments floating around in bottom of the bottle.

To me they are truly some of the most energetic wines I have ever come across and it’s their heartbeat, which I am drawn to, as they challenge and push my own perception on wine. It’s wine like his, which make a difference and reminds me why I am Mad About Wine.

Sometimes the aromatic profile of this wines actually reminds me of Champagne and even the acidity it at the same high pitched level as vins clairs.

His 2009’s have taken some time to come around, as I have found some of them pitched with some schnapps burning on the last meters. However you have to be aware of their contact with air changes them dramatically in the glass.

Préty starts with an insane purity of flower water, green apples, wheat flour, yeast and a bit of smoke. However it’s floral tones are pretty high toned and it’s just on the verge of twisting your arm and even for me becoming a bit strident. I decided to decant for one hour

Huge benefit and knowing this, I would decant it something like 5 hours next time. What happens – and especially with warmth (you can raise it to 16 degrees with no problem at all) – feels like the yeast and wheat flour tones put themselves on top of the wine and bringing the pitch of the floral tones some notches down. The taste is extremely electrical, filled with tons of soil energy and a nerve wrecking acidity.

Frightening, genuine, demanding and one hell of a good wine.

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