Wine & Spirits - April 2020 - 101

YEAR'S BEST WHITE BURGUNDIES
92 | Domaine Jean-Claude
Courtault

$44

2016 Chablis 1er Cru Beauroy (Best Buy) ^
A portion of this wine ages in older oak, lending a piecrust richness to the smoky bakedpear and orange flavors, along with the seashell-like minerality. As Karen Goodlad, a
wine professor at NYC's City Tech, pointed
out, "It's tight and ripe, and the acidity
screams Chablis." This will age with grace.
(W&S 10/19) § Banville Wine Merchants, NY
272768

92 | Dom. Louis Moreau

$50

2017 Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons ^ This domaine
includes 8.8 acres in Vaillons, where the oldest vines date to 1945. Vinified in stainless
steel without added yeasts, this wine developed an ornate complexity as it aged on the
fine lees. That complexity has not yet fully
emerged, living within a fresh, floral white
with savory green-almond notes and salty
minerality. It's classical and understated,
even as the concentrated depth of fruit is
apparent. Destined for the cellar. (W&S
10/19) § Craft + Estate/Winebow Imports, NY
276526

92 | J. Moreau & Fils

$50

2017 Chablis 1er Cru Montmains ^ Austere
in its savory lees, this expands from a tight
place into a plump and ample finish, even
as its lasting flavors are bready, nutty and
undeveloped. The overall impression is
clean and fresh, slowly yielding scents of nut
meats, orange meringue and lemon oil. Cool,
spicy and compressed, this needs bottle age
to mellow and expand. § Boisset Collection, St.
Helena, CA
272699

91 | Corrine & Jean-Pierre
Grossot

$50

2017 Chablis 1er Cru Vaucoupin ^ The Grossots farm 3.95 acres in Vaucoupin, their vines
averaging 50 years old, certified organic in
2015. Vinified and aged in stainless steel, this
is a tight, spicy Chablis with notes of white
flowers, apples and earthier pommes de terre.
A seashell minerality comes up with air, suggesting the wine has more to reveal with cellar time. (W&S 10/19) § V.O.S. Selections, NY
275637

91 | Domaine Laroche

$73

2017 Chablis 1er Cru Vieilles Vignes Fourchaume ^ This wine's bright, sunny richness
is walled off behind a mineral structure built
on lees. The finish lasts with notes of toasted
sunflower seeds, millet and spelt, along with
peppery spice. It's clean and tense, offering Chablisienne classicism if you have the
patience to wait a few years. § Wilson Daniels,
St. Helena, CA
276040

91 | Domaine
Louis Moreau

$43

2018 Chablis 1er Cru Vaulignot ^ Louis
Moreau farms 22 acres at this southeast-facing premier cru, vinifying the fruit in stainless steel tanks without added yeasts. Absent
any wood influence, the floral aspects of the
grape deliver scents of apple blossoms and
spring pollen. Creamy flavors of white peach
and brighter lime hold tension, setting the
wine up to evolve for five years or more. § Craft
+ Estate/Winebow Imports, NY
275889

90 | Coulaudin-Bussy

$40

2017 Chablis 1er Cru Côte de Léchet ^ With
its broad texture and round flavors of butternut and roasted pecan, this wine has enough
flintiness and tense acidity to keep it structured. That lemon-pith bite brings out the
spice in the wine, its leesy phenolics needing
bottle age to integrate. § Alain Junguenet Selection, Mountainside, NJ
275631

90 | Domaine Laroche

$60

2018 Chablis 1er Cru Les Vaudevey (Best
Buy) ^ Creamy and rich up front, saturated
with ripe white peach flavors, this is
gentle, with summery notes of oranges and
cottonwood. There's energy and structure
under all that richness, grounding the wine
for bottle age. § Wilson Daniels, St. Helena, CA

CHABLIS
275634

92 | Domaine Laroche

$40

2016 Chablis Vieille Voye (Best Buy) ^ Covering a knoll below Vaillons, this 17-acre parcel sustains 70-year-old vines on Kimmeridgian limestone. Aged in French oak foudre, its
fruit delivers a bright wine with the immediate richness of a briny shellfish stock, layering langoustine, oyster and scallop freshness
into notes of green apple and honeycomb.
The wine's clean power races through sun
and shadows with a wow factor that's unusual
for a village Chablis. Delicious. § Wilson Daniels, St. Helena, CA
276115

91 | Julien Brocard

$34

2018 Chablis La Boissoneuse (Best Buy) ^
In addition to running his family's Domaine
Jean-Marc Brocard, Julien Brocard started
his own label in 2012. His own 44.5-acre
domaine is Demeter certified, including
the 27 acres at Boissoneuse, on a hill above
Préhy, where he first experimented with biodynamics in the mid-1990s. He ferments the
wine in large oak vats, allowing the grape
lees to transmit a sense of the limestone
soil. Under a sun-warmed apple fragrance,

the lees carry the generous richness of an
oyster broth, the flavors held in tension that
predicts more detailed flavors to come. This
performs above most village Chablis and well
above its price. § David Bowler Wines, NY
273091

91 | Domaine Jean-Claude
Courtault

$29

91 | Dom. Louis Moreau

$27

90 | Samuel Billaud

$27

90 | Domaine
Drouhin Vaudon

$26

90 | Louis Jadot

$27

WINE & SPIRITS

101

2017 Chablis (Best Buy) ^ A tense, gingery
Chablis with understated scents of chalky
lime and grapefruit, this develops notes of
hazelnut, cinnamon and nutmeg that spice
the buttery citrus flavor. It improves markedly with air, and it should develop well over
the next several years in bottle. (W&S 10/19) §
Banville Wine Merchants, NY
272767
2018 Chablis (Best Buy) ^ Louis Moreau
farms 52 acres in the villages of Beines and
Chablis, most of his parcels on sandy clay. He
ferments this wine in stainless steel without
added yeasts, then ages it on the fine lees. In
2018, he achieved a wine of almost tropical
fruit ripeness, with the structure, layers of flavor and leesy complexity of a fine Chablis. If
you put your expectations aside and just take
this, heads up, as a white wine, you might
imagine its pineapple and lime, together with
its monolithic minerality, as part of a new
world order, with Chablis holding its own in
the midst of a warming climate. (W&S 10/19) §
Craft + Estate/Winebow Imports, NY
272578
2017 Chablis Les Grands Terroirs ^ Clean
and concentrated, this is a bright and spicy
Chablis with chalky chamomile scents and
buttery flavors with a prickle of lime. It's
young and needs a year or two of bottle age
for those flavors to deepen. (W&S 10/19) §
Shiverick Imports, Los Angeles, CA
272669

2018 Chablis (Best Buy) ^ This wine has a
green-tinged acidity that makes it cool and
mouthwatering, even as the flavors have
some unctuous weight and leesy depths. You
might find chamomile and scents of white
roses as the wine lasts, pure, spicy and clean.
(W&S 10/19) § Dreyfus, Ashby & Co., NY
275818
2018 Chablis (Best Buy) ^ This is bright and
crisp, with notes of honey and orange oil to
lift and warm its stony acidity. It's a clean and
savory limestone essence of chardonnay, to
target at the sweet meat of crab. § Kobrand,
Purchase, NY
276670
APRIL 2020

Wine & Spirits - April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - April 2020