Brett happens

Crémant du Jura 2011, Délire des Lyres, Zéro, Les Chais du Vieux Bourg ($31.95, 12814221)
Based in Arlay but with additional vineyards in Poligny, L’Étoile and Château-Chalon, the four-hectare estate was founded in 2003 by former architect Ludwig Bindernagel and Nathalie Eigenschenck. All work in the vineyard is done manually. While not officially organic, the estate does not use insecticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers and expects to obtain biodynamic certification in a few years. This traditional method, undosed sparkler is made 100% from Chardonnay grapes (per the SAQ; some claim it contains 10% Savagnin) from 30-year-old vines. The individual parcels are vinified separately. The grapes are manually harvested, pressed in a wooden press and fermented in large oak barrels. The resulting wine is given extended maturation on its lees. Added sulphur: 3 g/hl. Reducing sugar: 1.5 g/l. 12.5% ABV. Quebec agent: Ward et associés.
Attractive nose of browning pear and apple, honey, minerals and faint yeasty brioche notes. In the mouth, it’s medium-bodied, tightly wound and very dry, with very fine bubbles producing an almost prickly sensation. Tending to apple and citrus, the mineral-dusted fruit is “less rich than the nose suggests” (quoting another taster). Despite the effervescence and bracing acidity, the wine is oddly inert on the mid-palate. Fairly long with a bitter aftertaste. A second bottle tasted three weeks later was identical. (Buy again? Maybe a bottle to cellar for a year or two to see if we caught it during a dumb phase.)

Expectations around this bottle – a naturalish, no-dosage sparkler from a new-to-us but highly regarded producer in one of our favourite wine regions and represented by one of our favourite agencies – were high. Which made its lacklustre showing all the more disappointing. Not that the wine was bad. Far from it. But no one around the tables thought it represented good value when you can get, say, Baud’s Brut Sauvage for under $24 or Tissot’s basic crémant for $28 and change.

MWG March 31st tasting: flight 1 of 6