Alice Bouvot | Domaine de l'Octavin

A gnome is a gnome is a gnome though hers are rainbow-minded not mould-hided, living their best lives in technicolour rather than forgotten somewhere at the bottom of the garden. If black-hats means home-grown: pizza-Ploussards and opera-curtain soft Trousseaus; this white-topped chorus represents team négoce, a colour-by-number medley of compass points singing in voices of sweet gravity Grenache and pithy Alsatian suns but also honeydew drops of far-south Muscat and pistachio-shades of Sylvaner in an orchestra that Alice, chieftess of insane harvest logistics and curl-haired cuve conductoresse, leads in whispers. 

— Visit 7 March 2020. Arbois, Jura

'Foutre d’Escampette' 2015, Domaine de L'Octavin

Things used to be simpler. Penguins were without a doubt my favourite animal and I hated Chardonnay. It reminded me of those constantly condensing glasses at awkward art shows and tasted like vanilla butter cream pie from a can and yes this applied to all of them thank you very much, now please pass the red.

Then I had a Chardonnay by Axel Prüfer and it was crunchy, not buttery, earthy, not creamy. It tasted like hazy sunshine dappling over lazy water or running barefoot across a spring-flowered prairie: hair-flowing, fresh-aired, care-free and problematic: I liked it. But I took it in my stride, put it on the list and told people it tastes how it ‘wants’ to taste without being forced it into format.

I called it a ‘wild’ Chardonnay and an exception to the rule and was ok with that, bandying about terms like ‘straight-jacket’ and ‘homogeneity’ and posing questions like standardisation vs. individuality? 

I remember trying to explain the taste of electricity.

But of course when things seem simple you have to be sure you're not being stupid, and this wine reminds me of the time we went to Arbois / when I realised I was being stupid. 

Domaine de L'Octavin's "Foutre d’Escampette" 2015 tastes like a long summer day at a lake legs long over the dock, swimming out to the far raft, watermelon slices in bags, emerald-green slash brown water with light streams cutting through. 

What it’s not like is vanilla butter cream pie, and if they’re pouring this at art shows I wanna be there which is to say that I was totally wrong and that both penguins and Chardonnay can be ok.

Tasting notes:

Looks like cold sunshine through smoke. Tastes like hay and lemon-pithy lees with a hint of almond and stony white plums not quite ripe. Long lingering finish and cold water on your face acidity. Clean tasting, dirty name. 

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"Foutre d’Escampette" 2015

Domaine de L’Octavin, Alice Bouvot and Charles Dagand

Chardonnay 

Arbois, Jura

(Brought to the table by Clavelin for Le Carton pop up Dead Sheep, Living Wines).

More notes on Domaine de L'Octavin

Notes on a Chardonnay raised by wolves

'Commendatore' 2015, Domaine de l'Octavin

This is summer time blended then bottled. Flip flops flopping-flipping, blender-blitzed lemonade sipping ice cubes clinking shaded under straw hat or wind waving breezy tree. It’s raspberry picking backs bending searching through the prickly green and berry fatness-feeling and eating overloaded slice of peach pie thick crust with your hands paper plate, peaches dropping. Dripping ice pops, watermelon, tomatoes sticky down your chin and summer evening crickets cricketing fields rippling, corn — then marshmallows — grilling.

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"Commendatore" 2015

Domaine de l'Octavin

Trosseau

Arbois, Jura

Buy from Clavelin.

More Jura drinkings.