Visit to Les Dolomies

I am racing up a tiny and sharp windy track on the slopes of Chateau Chalon in a beat up little Renault. Beside me, driving, is Steve Gormally and squished into the back seat is Celine Gormally, wine maker for Les Dolomies and their intern student Stephane. I'm in two minds whether let go of my seat to pinch myself that I'm really here, or keep both hands to hold on for dear life. He gears down to third at 60km/hr and we hit what feels like a thirty percent incline on the coveted south western slopes below the abbey. It’s the stuff dreams are made of if you are a Jura fan. For them, it’s just another day and they have been driving this road for years. For me, seriously, I was just awestruck. We rally car it around some bends as I look at the drop offs into the vineyards below. Why anyone is crazy enough to farm these slopes is beyond me. Steep, rocky, muddy and apparently, the birds have a field day. We stop just slightly off the this tiny track at a small patch of vineyard, just so as to not fall into it, and to create a way for another vigneron that goes flying by us in his equally rally car way.

Their leased vineyard here actually lies just outside the appellation by a couple of meters on a flat part of the slope and near a forested part of the vines. It boasts an amazing view over the valley and above us is the village. Celine takes me into the vines and shows me how unique this little patch of dirt is. Loads of diversity here. I brush by mint, sage, basil and a whole heap of wild flowers and dandelions. Strawberry plants grow in every row. Butterflies and bees fly around me as I get Celine and Steve to stop for a photo. Seriously...I'm not making this up! As we all walk back to the car, Celine gets the student to name a couple of the weeds and flowers and I get the sense she is quite proud of this small piece of terrior. The Savagnin vines are only young at around 15 years compared to many of their other vines of around 40-50 years but I feel some amazing wines are to come from this little bit of heaven.

On the way back to Passanans, we stop by many of their other fields. A steep slope at Nevy-Sur-Seille, right near Chateau Chalon, of Savagnin and some Chardonnay. A small patch of Gamay in Brery near the forest and their main holdings of Chardonnay in their home village of Passanans. They have also been planting a little trousseau and Poulsard and have enough quantity this year to make some bottles. Some...meaning around 300 or so! I'm putting my order in now as the Poulsard is wild and funky expression of the grape and reminded me a little of a Houillion wine. We didn't go by the vineyard of St Lothain as 2015 will be the last wines from this site as Domain Diddier Grappe re claims them for his Domaine production.

Celine is a dedicated and passionate wine maker, she talks of her vines like children. Each one different and unique. She is passionate and caring of the environment and after healthy and strong vineyards in the Biodynamic way. She works the vineyards by hand and with a little help from donkeys on picking days. Her style is quite pure and mineral driven with lovely clean acid lines and some have a wild jura edge which I love. A new fermentation building has just been finished and houses all the stainless fermentation vats. From there the wines are transferred under their house to the cave and into second hand burgundy barrels of which all are around 5-10 years old. They are left to do their own thing with no batonage but are mostly topped up in style.

I tasted through the new 2014 wines from Les Dolomies at the cave. These were just bottled 2 weeks ago so they opened them up around 2 days ago to breathe. They still had a little bottle shock and need to settle but they are all really promising except for the Les Boutineres which was tight and unyielding and impossible to read. I also tasted through all the 2015 vintage must to see how they were travelling. There were some stand outs like the Funky Poulsard I already described. Hope this stays in the finished wine but at around 300 bottles for the world, I will be lucky to get 12. 2015 Pinot will be a cracker. Great tannin structure and full flavoured fruit. All the Chardonnays have good purity. Chateau Chalon Sav has a slight ox edge flavour and good ripeness so this should be interesting. The Gamay Pet Nat is exciting and racy with interesting texture. There is even a small batch of skin macerated Savagnin which is for experimental purposes. Their intern Stephane has to do it as part of his studies. They may or may not release this for sale. I would love to grab some if they do as I like the Savagnin done with skin contact. All in all they are very happy with their harvest and grape quality. Production is up at around 15000 bottles from their 9000 from 2014 and the last 3 previous years. All the producers throughout town are really happy about this.