Domaine Courbet, Côtes du Jura “Chardonnay de la Vallée”

The modern re-discovery of France’s Jura region started with its oddest offerings (not today’s offer)—tart, oxidative whites called vins jaunes (literally, “yellow wines”), which are aged under “veils” of yeast much like dry Sherries. Unique and delicious as those wines are, however, they’re antiques—whereas today’s wine, from the terrific, family-run Domaine Courbet, is a wholly modern interpretation of the Jura terroir. Anyone who still thinks of Jura Chardonnay as a kind of “country cousin” to white Burgundy need only taste this 2018 “Chardonnay de la Vallée” to realize that the gap has closed.Wine lovers may have first come to Jura for the weird stuff, but they’ve stayed because of crystalline, Burgundy-adjacent Chardonnays like this (we’ll save the Pinot Noirs for another day). Given that the heart of the Jura is only about an hour east of Beaune, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the Jura’s limestone-rich soil (from the, ahem, Jurassic period) is practically a dead-ringer for Bur