Domaine Elodie Jaume

Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Southern Rhône, France

Change was afoot at Domaine des Chanssaud when the young Elodie Jaume took charge in 2023 as the first woman head of the estate since its establishment in 1826. Elodie had already been the winemaker for her family’s domaine for many years prior, so this shift did not necessarily involve a stylistic change in the wines. However she changed the name of the estate to the eponymous Domaine Elodie Jaume, an event that marked the start of a new image, new ideas, and a renewed energy in the vines and in the cellar.

The soils and vineyards here have been farmed organically since 1996, with the winery becoming fully certified organic in 2012. Elodie began the conversion to biodynamic in 2017 which she has since completed on the entirety of the estate. She works the vineyards by horse, uses sheep to graze, keeps bees, and has been reintroducing native shrubs and plants to restore some much-needed biodiversity to what has become a heavily monocultural landscape in this region of the Rhône.  

Her ‘house’ style puts a key focus on fruit purity, using essentially no wood at all, and instead favouring large traditional concrete tanks for almost the entire range, as well as the limited use of amphorae and concrete eggs. It is how her father and grandfather used to traditionally vinify their wines and it remains the preference today. This ensures the maximum expression of these very old vineyards, for the most part averaging 70-80 years old (with the oldest vines pushing 100 years old).  

In recent years this northern part of the appellation has become more sought after for its slightly cooler sites, and its sandy soils that produce more refined and less concentrated expressions of the dominant Grenache and its typical ‘vinemates’ Carignan, Syrah, and Mourvedre amongst others.

In a region as traditional as Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Elodie is a real breath of fresh air. Her delicate touch in the vines and in the cellar has been slowly redefining the character and ultimately the potential of the appellation’s future. In the process she is also re-writing the story of her family domaine after nearly a century.