For all you Chablis aficionados out there, if we take Raveneau out of the mix, who are your favorite producers of:
Clos
Preuses
Valmur ?
Also, I would say that wine critics, as in Tanzer, Meadows, and Gilman, have for years consistently rated Fevre as highly as Raveneau, and although my Fevres have shown excellent depth of fruit, I have not necessarily seen them as typical of Chablis. And since mine have mostly succumbed to the pox relatively early in their lifetimes, I have no idea how they actually age…for me they have mostly suffered from progeria and an untimely death from old age during adolescence. Anyone out their with more delightful experiences with mature Fevres?
Robert, IMO it’s a pretty clear hierarchy for Chablis and the top GCs in particular (1) Raveneau (2) Dauvissat (3) Fevre (4) a number I’d find hard to separate including Louis Michel, Billaud Simon, Piuze etc. And yes Fevre do age beautifully, if they survive premox.
Even removing the premox issue from Fevre I agree, although a tasting at Fevre remains one of my all-time faves. We were the only one there and the lady poured everything for us. It was a great educational tasting.
Beyond the premox issue, I do not get the lack of love for Fevre. The wines are drastically less oaky than they used to be, and show as proper Chablis.
raveneau is tops for me as i find the wines to be remarkably fine even in hot vintages. dauvissat can be overripe in just a warm vintage.
pico and tribut make excellent chablis but have no grand crus.
I still own 50 btls of Dauvissat from back when the pricing still made sense to me but I no longer buy Raveneau or Dauvissat. Both are very overpriced IMO. Like all wine regions there comes a time when the most renowned producers are just too expensive for most of us. I think Chablis offers up many other great producers at much better values. Lately I’ve been focusing on AOC Chablis and terrific 1er Crus Like Montee De Tonnerre from anyone who offers them at a sensible price. AOC for $17 -$25 and MDT for $28 - $45 almost never let me down from just about anyone. MDT has close to same terroir as the grands. If you don’t now, sprinkle in some AOC and 1ers. They’re great values.
Billaud Simon - My fav producer, love everything they do. The Preuses sets the standard for that vineyard IMO. Their AOC Chablis is awesome for the money as is the MDT. Milieu right there too. Selectively… Fevre - Their Grands have gone crazy on price but you can always enjoy the $16-$20 Champs Royoux and occasionally find the MDT for $45ish. You can’t sneak up on the grands anymore. You’ll pay full boat plus for those. Samuel Billaud - Brother who split off. An up and comer with MDT going for around $35 and very reasonable AOC. Grossot - when you can find it, its great and fairly priced. Love the AOC and Mileu. Garnier - another under the radar solid value producer La Chablisienne Think this is coop but putting out very nice Grand Crus for $35-$50. Think the MDT was just offered the other day for $28 from Envoyer? I almost bit but lave lots and lots of Chablis. Domaine Costal - Really like wines too from Kermitt Lynch
I think this last bit is correct re Piuze’s track record. Not GC but I loved Piuze’s 08 Vaucoupins (which I believe he has stopped producing) - but i’ve been a bit underwhelmed by subsequent experiences and a recent bottle of '10 Butteaux was clearly advanced. I have some Valmurs from 2010 which I’ll sit on for a bit longer. To me its still too early to tell.
I got very lucky with a case of 04 Valmur from Fevre which was generally great.
I think they did for a while, certainly for Chablis.
What impressed me, though, in addition to an outstanding tasting of the at the time just-bottled '08s when I visited there, was that, upon being asked about premox issues, the folks at Fevre launched into a very serious discussion of what the possible causes were and how they were taking steps to address each and every potential cause. This came in stark contrast to the response at Raveneau later that evening, upon being asked the same question: pfft, it doesn’t exist. It’s in American’s imagination.
All that aside, I love Raveneau, Dauvissat and Fevre. I don’t see the need for any other producers.
As in Burgundy, assessing how some producers’ wines age can be a moving target. Fevre made some major changes about 15 years ago if I remember, and has made many more recent changes (for the good with regard to premox. they’ve been one of the most up front producers in this regard in all of burgundy). Another producer that we own a moderate amount of locally–C Moreau, just took back their own vineyards 12-13 years ago, and I think there was an adjustment curve over the next few years. With the latter producer, I’ve had a few more flawed bottles (more corked wines than premox) than with Dauvissat, so I haven’t really had enough aged bottles to get an impression.
With Fevre, the non-premoxed bottles from 2002 and 2004 have been quite good (but few and far between), although not quite as good as Dauvissat.
With Raveneau in the “mix”, I’d take Dauvissat for those two vineyards any time. I have never experienced a better wine in Chablis, vintage after vintage, than the Preuses from Dauvissat.
I consider Raveneau, like Coche, a stylized version of Chablis. Not that I haven’t like them…but…I find Dauvissat the truest example of what I look for in Chablis. And, they age amazingly well…had a '96 Clos last weekend that was young still.
The cause is unknown with any certainty (that’s why my last post said “possible causes”), but there are at least 4-5 different theories of what might cause it or contribute to it including cork treatment, lowered sulphur dioxide, stirring of the lees, gentler presses etc. Check the wiki for a good discussion. Fevre were willing to address all of them as possible. It was 5+ years ago, so I don’t remember much of the of the specifics. My point was that they took it seriously, which I found respectable, whereas Raveneau wouldn’t even admit it exists.