2017 | Vincent Dauvissat | Les Clos

The wine delivers great complexity and breed in its aromatic constellation of pink grapefruit, lemon, pear, flinty minerality, citrus peel, salty overtones and a topnote of spring flowers. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, pure and racy, with a great core, stunning mineral drive, racy acids and impeccable cut and balance on the very, very long and complex finish.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: The 2017 Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos is more powerful than the Preuses, offering up a more extroverted expression of fruit with notes of lemon oil and mandarin, mingling with nuances of beeswax, dried white flowers and iodine. On the palate, it's fuller-bodied and more textural, with chewy extract and substance but with bright balancing acids and a long, stony finish. For finesse and complexity, the Preuses has the edge at this early stage, whereas Les Clos leads in terms of mass and impact. As is consistently the case, Vincent Dauvissat has fashioned some of the finest wines to be found in both the 2016 and 2017 vintages. 2016 is a small crop, amounting to a mere third of an average harvest. The wines are comparatively low in acidity, with notable concentration, but remaining tense, pure and incisive. By the standards of Dauvissat's wines, I suspect they will prove comparatively precocious but hold well—perhaps evoking the 1992 vintage. The domaine also suffered in 2017, though not as badly, losing some 30% of a normal harvest. The remaining grapes were ripe and clean, producing wines best described as classic but charming. As at several other addresses where long sur lie élevage is the norm, I caught the nascent 2017s very early in their evolution, so I'll try to look at them again later in the year.

• James Suckling: This has such completeness and very expressive long powerful palate with a wealth of ripe lemons, grapefruit, peaches and nectarines. So much in this glass of wine! The length, power, finesse and seamlessness is staggering. Such intense fruit with flesh and depth. Super long, intense and compelling. Light but intense.

Producer Information

Vincent Dauvissat is one of the most prestigious producers from the Chablis region of northern Burgundy. It is family-owned and -operated and has been selling wine under the family name since 1931. In 1976 Vincent began helping his father René Dauvissat and he has since taken over. The wines can be bottled as Vincent Dauvissat or Domaine Dauvissat-Camus – the latter denoting wider family holdings farmed and made by Dauvissat. Chablis in general is known for its steely, crisp wines made from Chardonnay. The soil of the best sites is Kimmeridgian, a mineral-rich clay with significant lime content formed by a high density of marine fossils. Vincent Dauvissat has sections in two Grand Cru vineyards: Les Clos and Les Preuses. Additionally, Dauvissat boasts four premier cru sites: Séchet, Vaillons, Montmains, and the acclaimed La Forêt (labeled by Dauvissat as "La Forest"), the quality of which can approach that of the grand crus in good vintages. Dauvissat also produces a Villages Chablis and a Petit Chablis. However, the small size of Dauvissat's basic Chablis holding (on the opposite side of the valley to the La Forêt vineyard) and its correspondingly small production means it can be the hardest of the wines to find. The fruit is naturally farmed and hand-harvested. No destemming is done (the wines are all whole bunch pressed) and malolactic fermentation occurs spontaneously. Winter temperatures cause the tartrates to precipitate out of the wine and beyond this, the wines are unfined. Unconventionally for Chablis, Dauvissat forgoes bâtonnage (regular lees stirring). Vincent Dauvissat is also one of the few Chablis producers to use oak barrels during élevage (the wines' maturation in cellar), though the barrels used are 6-8 years old. The belief is that the oak is essential in developing the body and structure of the wine, but old barrels are used so that the flavor characteristics are unaffected.

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