A bottle of Stéphane Tissot’s 2005 Arbois Chardonnay ‘Les Bruyères’, served blind, inspired Guillaume d’Angerville of Volnay to seek out vineyards in the Jura. Alongside François Duvivier, who also oversees winemaking at Domaine d’Angerville in Volnay, Guillaume founded Domaine du Pélican and quickly embraced the region’s distinctive terroir. The project gained widespread attention in 2014 with the acquisition of vineyards from Jura legend Jacques Puffeney. By converting the estate to biodynamic farming and applying a precise, Burgundian-inspired approach in the cellar, d’Angerville has crafted an elegant and refined expression of Jura wines.

Today, Domaine du Pélican farms approximately 15 hectares across the villages of Arbois and Montigny-lès-Arsures, all within the Arbois appellation. Estate-wide plantings consist of 42% Savagnin, 30% Chardonnay, 10% Poulsard, 6% Trousseau, and 12% Pinot Noir. Among the estate’s holdings, Grand Curoulet and En Barbi are the two flagship sites for white wine production.

Grand Curoulet is an impressive, late-ripening, north-facing vineyard planted to 3.5 hectares of Savagnin and 1.5 hectares of Chardonnay. It is believed to be the first site where vines were planted in Arbois and remains one of the region’s premier vineyards. Approximately half of the vineyard is composed of grey marl soils, while the remainder is a mix of green and red Triassic marls.

En Barbi is a south-facing vineyard planted to 1 hectare of Chardonnay, 0.5 hectares of Savagnin, and 0.3 hectares of mixed Trousseau and Poulsard. A portion of the vineyard was acquired from Jacques Puffeney. Its south-facing exposure and protection from wind make En Barbi an early-ripening site that consistently achieves full fruit ripeness. The soils are composed of silty clay over Jurassic grey marls, with such a high concentration of limestone that the marl can appear white.

Winemaking at Pélican is intentionally straightforward so as not to obscure the character of the terroirs they farm. For the white wines, a range different sizes of barrel and foudre are used during élevage. For the reds, all fruit is destemmed, reflecting Guillaume’s belief that, “You make wine from the fruit, not the stems.”