Tucked into the Mountains of the same name, Jura flanks France’s eastern side on Switzerland's border. Gifted with rugged natural beauty, idyllic villages dot the landscape filled with some of the most hospitable folks you'll... Read More

Tucked into the Mountains of the same name, Jura flanks France’s eastern side on Switzerland's border. Gifted with rugged natural beauty, idyllic villages dot the landscape filled with some of the most hospitable folks you'll find anywhere in the world. Though near France's most famous epicurean regions, it has a food and wine culture wholly its own that is second to none. All of this is only accentuated by the generous and humble nature of those who call Jura home.

Fabrice Dodane fits that mold. Affable as he is talented, Fabrice produces wines that are held in the same esteem, by those lucky enough to have tried them, as those made by his close friends and collaborators Emanuel Houillon and Jean Francois Ganevat. He started off working for a cooperative in the town of Pupillin after finishing oenology school in the mid-eighties. In 1989 he landed a job as vineyard manager at the venerable Domaine de Saint Pierre where he quickly began the process of organic conversion. After the untimely death of the domaines owner, he purchased it outright in 2011.

Fabrice had a plan and quickly went to work. The wines at Saint Pierre have always been solid but he knew that with the quality of the vineyard that they had to work with that he could make something truly special. He has honed his wine-making style considerably eschewing the use of sulfur except when absolutely necessary. All wines are fermented using only indigenous yeasts in either stainless steel tanks for the red or 400-600L oak puncheons for the whites. Whites are aged in either the traditional oxidative style known as “sous voile” or in the “Burgundian” style where the barrels are topped off in order to arrest oxidation.

Fabrice has continued to hone his vineyard practices as well. Ecocert certified organic since 2008 the vineyards, located in the legendary Arbois villages of Vadans and Saint-Pierre, are now farmed according to biodynamic principles. Because of the never ending string of disastrous vintages in the Jura because of Spring frost, Fabrice has expanded his horizons to include purchasing grapes from friends farming to his exacting standards both in the Jura and in other regions. Estate wines are sold under the Domaine de Saint Pierre label while those made from purchased fruit are known as Les Dos d’Chat and are made in easy drinking, “glou glou” style.

Tasting these wines it is easy to see why they are the darling of the natural wine scenes in Paris, London, New York and Tokyo. The whites are sumptuous and savory while his reds have a crystalline purity.