2010 - Arbois Pupillin Chardonnay, Maison Pierre Overnoy

Only in bottle for just over a week when I tasted it, the Houillon-Overnoy 2010 Arbois-Pupillin Chardonnay comes entirely from one site – though it isn’t named on the label – and a single foudre. Fresh lemon, apple, and milled grain are reminiscent of white Burgundy, but this exhibits a grip and vibrancy as well as a diversity of (for lack of a better word) minerality that you’ll only rarely encounter in the former genre. The mouthwatering sense of salinity runs toward the oceanic in its nuanced complexity as well as its enveloping palate persistence, not to mention mouthwatering persistence. Suggestions of vegetable stock including celery and carrot have some analogy in the realm of Chablis, but this is delightfully distinctive stuff. “This will still be young in 20 years,” claims Overnoy, and I am hesitant to challenge his prognosis. Since his late teens, Emmanuel Houillon has worked with his mentor and now partner Pierre Overnoy (whose name until recently also received top-billing on this Pupillin estate’s very old-fashioned label). The domaine, divided almost equally among Chardonnay, Savagnin, and Poulsard, has more than doubled in size – to a bit more than a dozen acres – in less than five years, thanks to property owned by Overnoy’s sister and to parcels acquired by Houillon himself. While Overnoy is happily still very much with us, he has long since become a legend in his own time, not only as the local viticultural guru and epitome of vinous Jura integrity, but more recently to a wider audience of self-proclaimed “natural wine” producers and devotees as a staunch (and long-time) advocate of sulfur-free elevage and bottling, whose wines are complexly expressive in their youth but also consistently stand the test of time. According to Overnoy, his father naturally (i.e. automatically, given his time and place) vinified the wine from his small holdings without any added sulfur, but Pierre came to his determination and his understanding of how to do this af