I organised a Raveneau vs. Dauvissat tasting at the Portland in London with a few friends last night.
We drank:
1971 Raveneau Clos
1982 Dauvissat Forest
1995 dauvissat clos
1996 Raveneau clos
2000 dauvissat clos
2002 dauvissat Forest
2002 Raveneau foret
2002 Raveneau MdT
2007 dauvissat Forest
2008 dauvissat preuses
2010 Raveneau mdr
2010 dauvissat preuses
2011 Raveneau clos
2011 dauvissat preuses
Of the 14 wines, one was DOA (the 71 clos, had pretty poor levels and dodgy colour so no surprise) and one was corked (2007 dauvissat forest). All the other ones showed amazingly well. The sheer quality of all those wines was quite something. Not a whiff of oxidation in any of them.
The 1982 forest was still fresh but with plenty of tertiary developments. Great wine.
The 1995 clos was wine of the evening in my book. Amazingly complex nose, great texture, spherical. Spécial wine, and one that would give the very top wines of the cote de Beaune a run for their money.
The 1996 clos is in the same league but made of slightly more austere cloth. It probably needs another 5 or 10 years?
Overall i had a slight preference for the dauvissat wines, and i came to the dinner expecting Raveneau to be the « winner ». I found them a little more expressive and with a slightly lighter structure.
I’ve had a fair number of 1995 and 1996 Chablis recently and i find that 1995 is the better vintage right now. There’s a general feeling that 1996 = high acid = great year for Chablis but i find them to be still a bit monolithic and impressive rather than enjoyable. 1995 is impossible not to love right now.
2002 is fulfilling its considerable promises and growing up to be one of the great Chablis vintages. Was fascinating to taste the 2002 rav foret alongside the 2002 dauvissat forest. No clear winner there, just preferences… (and the wines were frankly very similar).
2008 has a lot of everything and may one day be what 1995 is today. 2010 no slouch either.
Overall this tasting reinforced my view that dauvissat and raveneau have been making some of the very best white wines in the world for a while now and still provide much better VFM than most cote de Beaune wines. Neal and Jancis will publish notes at some point.
The food and service at Portland were top notch. We also got to drink the wines in the new JR glasses and I bought a pack as soon as I got home. They’re like zaltos but less four square and even more universal.