We'll Take What Comes
We'll Take What Comes
Fabrice Dodane of Domaine de Saint Pierre on the frost troubles of the Jura.
Pupillin native Fabrice Dodane wasn’t born into viticulture. But since taking over the Arbois estate he’d long managed in 2012 - Domaine de Saint Pierre - he’s come to rank among the region’s great natural winemaking talents, more than holding his own alongside friends like Jean-François Ganevat and Philippe Bornard. I caught up with Dodane at his cellar in early May on the morning he was scheduled to get his first COVID vaccination.
Quick Facts:
Domaine de Saint Pierre was 3.5ha when Dodane began working there in 2000. Over the years he increased its surface to its present 7.5ha, mostly through new plantings.
Dodane began producing négoçiant wines in 2017, under label “Dos de Chat,” his nickname. (“Dodane,” for what it’s worth, means “speed bump” in French.)
Like many in the Jura, Dodane has been hard-hit by frost over the past five years.
One reason to be cheerful: 2020 marks the first significant vintage (there was a micro quantity in 2018) of Dodane’s vivid, cinnamon-toned Arbois Poulsard “Petit Curoulet,” from vines planted in 2015. (Previous Arbois reds labelled as “Petit Curoulet” have been blends.)
INTERVIEW: FABRICE DODANE
This interview took place in early May 2021. It has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Tell us a little about Domaine de Saint Pierre.
I arrived here in 2000. We put the estate in organics when I arrived. We passed into biodynamics in 2008. Then I took over the estate in 2012. We started to make the first sans soufre wines. Today it’s not 100% sans soufre, but practically. It depends on the vintage. There are some vintages where it’s 100% without added sulfites.
Were you always sensitive to additive-free vinification?
Of course. Otherwise I wouldn’t do it. You vinify wine how you like to drink it.
But [additive-free vinification] doesn’t get put in place from one day to the next. When we say without additives, it has to be truly without additives. When we say no added sulfites, it’s no added sulfites. Otherwise we say there’s been some added.
How are you holding up with regards to frost this year?
It’s complicated. It’s the third frost year in five years. In 2017 we frosted; in 2018 we made some grapes. In 2019 we frosted; in 2020 we made grapes. In 2021 we frosted. So one year we make grapes, another year we don’t. It’s really annoying.
This year we’ll make 4HL/ha, or maybe just 2HL/ha. People have trouble understanding this. The next year they ask how much wine you made, and you have to remind them you didn’t make any.
Will you make up for it by augmenting négoçiant production?
It’s the same issue with the négoce this year. Where do you want to buy grapes? There’s none anywhere.
We’ll get some from the Beaujolais. We’ll get a little from Alsace. We’ll do a bit of riesling, if we find good grapes. But with this weather, it’ll be less good than anticipated. And anyway, it’s not what we want to make. What we want to make is Jura wine.
And purchases from Jura will be complicated. It really is demotivating. You have the same work, and you have to spend money, and there’s nothing at the end, you know. We don’t even feel like going into the vines at the moment.
The work doesn’t stop in the summer after bad frost.
The cost of labor and production is the same when there’s grapes as when there isn’t. Debudding and green pruning will even more complicated. The vine grows any which way, and you have some parts that grow more than others. Raising the branches will be complicated. You’re still obliged to do the treatments. Same for plowing the soil.
If you come back in a month, or a good month and a half, you won’t see that it frosted. From a distance, the vines are the same. Except there’s no grapes on them.
I understand the answer isn’t simply to prune later and later.
It was 28°C in March, that’s the problem. Then it snowed and it was -6°C. It’s not a story of pruning early or late. People make me laugh. It you start to prune on May 1st, you won’t harvest. There’s nothing you can do. We can put in a frost fan, and we can make heat, but we didn’t even start it up this year, it would have served no purpose.
It becomes really complicated. There’s no winter, and then it’s too hot in one blow. Then we passed from the temperature of July to the temperature of November.
Some vignerons suggest planting frost-resistant or late-ripening hybrids might help.
We’re not going to uproot everything and put in hybrids. The client who wants a Jura wine doesn’t want a hybrid. Anyway it’s not here that one should do that. You should do it in the Midi, where the viticulture is easy. The climate is easy, and it’s flat, and voila. Here, we have production costs that are super high.
Many natural wines from the Jura have become highly sought-after in recent years. For you, when did demand explode?
It was between 2010 and 2015. It changed a lot. From 2015, we’ve had no more wine to sell. We haven’t had the yields. So you can no longer take new clients. It’s not easy. We bottle and we have to make allocations. And everyone has a good argument to get a lot.
Nowadays we don’t remember the vintages that weren’t good. The ones that were either rotten, or not ripe. These days that doesn’t happen anymore. We haven’t seen that in a moment. But in the 1960s and 1970s, there were shitty vintages.
Now everyone says they want wine and all, because we bring in beautiful ripe grapes, but back in the years where they harvested at end October, and it was 8° alcohol, you can lower the price, but you don’t sell it. 1984 was abundant, but it was disgusting. It was a catastrophe. Vintages like that, you can’t do anything with it. It wasn’t ripe, it was rotten.
So you have to look at the global situation. In 2018 and 2020 we made volume, but it made still good wine. Very good wine.
Despite frost, the Jura is still doing well, compared to the past.
It’s all relative. With a good climate, we harvest earlier, and we can wait for good maturities. There used to be vintages where they harvested in the snow and it wasn’t ripe.
So we’ll take what comes. For the little frosts, when its one night or two, we can protect ourselves. But for the big frosts, like this year, we can’t do anything.
When was your first vintage helping make wine ?
Oh, since forever. Since I was five years old, I linger in the cellars. My parents aren’t in viticulture. But I went to school in Pupillin. When school was over for the day I’d go chez Pierre Overnoy. So it’s been a long time that I’ve been in this.
Domaine de Saint Pierre - Fabrice Dodane
6 Rue du Moulin
39600 MATHENAY
+33 3 84 73 97 23
FURTHER READING
There’s a real howler in this profile of Fabrice Dodane on the Beaune Imports website: “Because of the minimal use of sulfur in the wine making, the wines generally go through malo-lactic fermentation.” No kidding, guys.
Some nice photos of quality time with Dodane on the profile on the MFW Wine Company website.