Domaine de Saint-Pierre, Arbois, Petit Curoulet 2022 - 75cl
Poulsard is the Jura's pale, fragile answer to red wine - so light in colour it can look like a dark rose, so low in tannin it barely grips. In the wrong hands it turns thin. In Fabrice Dodane's, at Domaine de Saint-Pierre, it becomes one of the most quietly compelling reds in eastern France.
The Petit Curoulet plot sits at Badans in Arbois, 340 metres up on grey marl and limestone. Dodane farms his six hectares organically and works with a purist's restraint: native-yeast ferments in tank or old neutral barrels, and reds bottled with no added sulphur. Nothing gets in the way of the fruit or the place.
The 2022 is soft and welcoming already. The nose runs on bright red cherry, cranberry and plum, lifted by a floral, spiced edge - rosewater, a curl of woodsmoke. The palate is silky and weightless, ripe plum and blueberry rounded out by salted almond and chestnut, a thread of tobacco and malt underneath. What holds it together is that classic Jura acidity, crunchy and mouth-watering, closing on a rocky, saline note. Drink it over the next three to four years while the fruit stays this vivid.
How to Serve
Serve lightly chilled, 13-14°C, in a standard red glass. No decanting; Poulsard this delicate only loses its perfume if you push it.
Where to Drink It
Planque, Haggerston - a natural-leaning list that treats Jura reds as house wines.
Dandy, Maltby Street - small plates and low-intervention bottles, exactly its scene.
Brat, Shoreditch - the smoke off the grill echoes the wine's own faint char.
Food Pairings
Serve it slightly cool alongside a plate of charcuterie and cornichons - the wine's saline lift cuts the fat and never fights the salt.
