Champ Divin - Castor Blanc 2022

The Cuvee Castor features 50% Chardonnay sourced from deep clay limestone soil and 50% Savagnin from grey marl. Manual harvesting leads to a gentle hydraulic press, followed by wild fermentation and malolactic conversion in stainless steel tanks. The wine is carefully blended and aged in stainless steel to preserve the fruit's clean vibrancy and freshness.

Notes of meadow, white flowers, chamomile tea and a lick of stoney minerality. With a delightful Jurassic acid drive, this easy-drinking blend exhibits accessibility and balanced flavours but there is plenty of complexity to find.

Food Match: Partner this Cuvee Castor with a classic Jura dish, Chicken Comtoise, where the wine's bright acidity complements the creamy flavours.

THE ESTATE

True artisans of the land, Fabrice and Valérie Closset-Gaziaux acquired 5 hectares of Jura vineyards in 2008 which they immediately converted to organic and biodynamic. Their backgrounds are in Earth Sciences and were advisers to growers in the Loire valley on organic practices. They have always loved working in vineyards and when the opportunity presented itself, with a retired vigneron in Gevingey, they jumped and didn’t look back.

Gevingey is located at the top of the Revermont Zone of the lower Jura where Chardonnay is revered due to the more prominent limestone clay soils over limestone/silica bedrock. They cultivate Demeter certified vines of Pinot and Chardonnay on these soils and Savagnin on the more classic grey marl. The farm remains on a human scale, being between 5-7hectares, letting them both produce wine only from their own vineyards and are firm believers in this style of cultivation.

They are methodical people, both of them former engineers, which you can see in their cave and their wines. The new cave was built in 2009, soon after acquiring the vineyards, and is clean, tidy and purpose built winery and probably one of the most well set out I have seen in the Jura. Stainless steel vats are housed in the fermentation room and each wine has its own maturation vault housing the barrels for their Pinot, Chardonnay, Savagnin and sous voile wines. A lot of thought and care has gone into the planning of their winery and the care of their wines. Their wines are a window into the terroir that they were grown on. Rich fruited, focused, technical and precise with loads of Jurassic acid backbone carrying all the flavours. Their sous voile wines, perfect examples of what I love about Jura but forward enough to be able to be enjoyed very soon after bottling.

Wines undergo hydraulic press and into stainless steel for fermentation. All wild yeast and a small amount of sulphur. Wines go into burgundy barrels and demi-muid to undergo malo and left as pure as possible.