My DDO Direct shipment for June 2007 - 2006 Arthur Chardonnay
As one of the members of the Domaine Drouhin (DDO) Direct club, I receive four shipments a year. Each shipment contains three bottles of wine, which works out well because DDO only release four different wines. Now, I joined the club to get my hands on the Louise Pinot Noir release. The only way to get this wine is through the DDO Direct club. But I also enjoy the other DDO releases, of course, although until recently I had never paid much attention to their Chardonnay.
That was a mistake.
The 2006 vintage marks the 11th release of Arthur, which was only renamed Arthur (after Veronique Drouhin’s son) in 2002. At $30/bottle, the price has been steadily increasing over the past few years, particularly as Arthur begins to sell out just 1-2 months after each new release. The 2005 vintage sold out fairly rapidly, selling out by November according to the DDO mailer. They produced 1,700 cases of the 2005 Arthur; production has increased slightly to 2,200 cases for the 2006 vintage. Those numbers are both up from 450 cases in 1996 and 750 cases in 2000, although in 2001 they made 1,600 cases and in 2002 they made 1,850 cases. As usual, half-bottles of the 2006 are available…and if you’re really feeling frisky you can plunk down $65 and get a magnum of Arthur Chardonnay. Very cool!
I like the DDO Arthur Chardonnay. I have tried it a couple of times over the last few years, and in my opinion they keep improving this wine year after year. The last time I tried Arthur, I had the 2002 release. My mom had stashed a half-bottle of the 2002 in the fridge for quite some time, but the wine was preserved quite well and it tasted delicious, with lots of peach and citrus notes. The official winery tasting notes cite the same peach aroma, but also mention honey and a couple of other notes to the bouquet that probably would have showed up had I allowed the wine to warm up a little before I tasted it.
The 2006 Arthur features an interesting winemaking methodology. They pressed the 100% Dijon clone, Estate-grown grapes in whole clusters. I like this approach even though it is more labor-intensive for the winery; whole-cluster pressing apparently yields better quality juice, although I do not have any quantitative proof on the subject. Anyway, after pressing the grapes, the winemakers at DDO segregated the resulting juice into two equal batches. Half the juice wound up in French oak barrels, the other half went into stainless steel. Eight months later, they combined these two batches of juice and bottled the result.
In the past I used my allocation of Arthur Chardonnay as presents for people who like white wine. This time around, I may just keep all of it for those nights when I make seared scallops. It’s a great wine and at $30/bottle it’s worth a try. If you’re not that into Chardonnay, you might like the $15 half-bottle price even better!