Antoine Jobard Bourgogne Chardonnay 2024

The LandThis is labeled Bourgogne, the bottom rung of the Burgundy hierarchy, and the vines sit inside the commune of Meursault. The fruit comes from four lieux-dits, Les Herbeaux, En l'Ormeau, La Monatine, and Sous la Velle, in the middle and northern reaches of the commune, on the outside of the appellation boundary. Sous la Velle also feeds Jobard's village Meursault: part of it falls inside the line, part does not, and the vines do not know the difference. Just over a hectare in total, clay over limestone, planted between 1992 and 2015. That boundary is the whole value argument, and it is a real one.The WineOne hundred percent Chardonnay, hand-harvested and pressed gently in a pneumatic press with little to no debourbage. Both the alcoholic and the malolactic fermentation happen in barrel, only twenty percent of it new, which is restrained for Meursault and deliberately so. The lees are never stirred. Elevage runs twenty to twenty-three months in wood that is mostly four to five years old, and the wine is bottled unfined, in some vintages lightly filtered. Jobard's whites are habitually the last to reach the American market each year because the malolactics take their time. Expect lemon peel, hazelnut, crushed oyster shell, and a struck-match reduction that wants a decant or two years in the cellar. In 2024 the Cote de Beaune fought relentless spring rain, heavy downy mildew, uneven flowering, and scattered hail. Chardonnay losses ran ten to twenty percent, and the whites came in taut and high-acid rather than rich.The PeopleThe Jobards have been in Meursault since about 1860, and Antoine is the fifth generation. The estate was Domaine Pierre Jobard until 1971, when it was split between the heirs Charles and Francois. Francois built the reputation the name now carries: austere, reductive, mineral Meursault that punished anyone who opened it early and rewarded anyone who waited a decade. Antoine worked beside his father for years before the domaine took his name in 2006. The style has softened at the edges, with less severity in youth, without shortening the elevage or adding oak. Farming is lutte raisonnee, with regular plowing, Guyot Poussard pruning, and fermentations that start on their own with indigenous yeasts. Twelve and a half hectares in all. Kermit Lynch first bought from Francois in the 1970s and still imports the wines.Food PairingRoast chicken with butter under the skin and a lemon in the cavity is the honest answer, and the acid handles the fat without effort. Sole meuniere does the same trick with more precision, brown butter meeting hazelnut. Scallops seared hard and finished with a little creme fraiche flatter the lees texture. If you want to watch the reduction resolve, a wedge of aged Comte and nothing else. Open it, then leave it alone for an hour. This is a bottle worth clearing an evening for rather than pouring on the way past.