(1) if it actually still is and will continue to be possible to make Chablis in the style of 15+ year ago but
(2) with the option and ability to make a riper, fuller style of Chardonnay, most Chablis producers will be quite happy to do so.
I understand what traditionalist WBers hope for, but is that aligned with what benefits most Chablis producers? Did they used to make wines with lean fruit and searing acids because that was the optimal style for their business, or was it because that what they could achieve?
Especially as White Burgundy prices skyrocket, I am guessing most Chablis producers would be very happy to offer fuller bodied wines that substitute for the Meursaults and Pulignys people used to buy.
One reason I suspect all this is that winemakers who we explicitly know want to make high acid low alcohol chardonnay as a stylistic choice, there is no sign they are becoming unable to do so. You don’t see Kutch, Arnot Roberts, Goodfellow, Walter Scott, Rhys, etc. throwing up their hands and saying “I just can’t do it anymore, next year’s chardonnay is going to be 14.2% and full bodied.” And it’s global warming, right?
Was there a sharp change in vintages in Chablis at some point, as there was in the Mosel? Some years back, I looked up data on German harvests and 1999 was a real turning point, with significantly warmer weather virtually every year since then.
This is a great question for wine regions throughout Europe. it is 97 degrees in Bordeaux right now. The average temperature on this date (high temp) is 77 degrees. At least in my opinion, in general the warmth has helped the quality of Bordeaux over the last 20 years. The 1961 vintage had a high temp on Aug 29 of 99.7 degrees and 96 degrees on Sept 16. The Aug 29 temp is still the record for that day.
There’s a fundamental bed of assumption in the wine world that vines that ripen slower (ie colder) somehow has the edge over fruit that reaches that ripeness earlier (warmer). But is that assumption true? I’ve not seen any definites speaking to this. Maybe a grape in a warmer region just reaches the same place earlier?
Obviously, with not enough diurnal shifts in temperature, we all know that grapes tend to drop more acid, which can force winemakers to pick before they would like, but just because a place is hotter, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have cool nights. Many parts of CA is a perfect example of that type of climate.
True, but when picking earlier, is there truly enough ‘physiological ripeness’ to allow for varietal character to still show through, rather than acidic wine with lower alcohols?
This is hazy hearsay, but I remember reading that in the Middle Ages the Chablis vineyard was one of the largest in France, if not the world. After phylloxera it dwindled and by the 50s was down to 1000 acres. I believe that within the past generation the area was expanded dramatically, especially for Petit Chablis.
I had not heard that Petit Chablis could include grapes other than Chardonnay. This is not indicated on the chablis-wines.com website. I had heard that the soils are more Portlandian than Kimmeridgean, but have not seen any specifics.
For most of the ~8000 year history of wine, growers wanted greater ripeness (along with high yields). In a calorie-starved world, this made perfect sense. With calories abundant for most wine-drinkers and overall consumption stagnant or declining, there has been an obvious shift in the market. Sales of white wines are growing while red is shrinking and rose is stagnant. I think there is a real trend towards whites with lower alcohol and higher acidity. Mosel Rieslings have already seen a dramatic change in style, away from what the historic market expected. With the change in Mosel Riesling one of the pillars of my consumption crumbled. I hope the Chablis pillar doesn’t do the same.
I’d be interested in a short list of ordinarily disadvantaged sites that might be sought in overly warm years. I’ve gravitated toward Les Lys on the north side of Vaillons, and Secher(ts), as sites that tend to give crisper, leaner wines, but I’m sure there are likely many others.
I know you are a global warming skeptic. But if you are going to constantly offer alternative explanations for the hotter weather in winegrowing regions over the last 20 years and the change in alcohol levels in those wines, winemaker choice should not be your go to alternative. First of all, you are now positing it in every region you hear about. Is it really likely that the conspiracy of high alcohol loving winemakers has moved pointedly north over the years, from the Rhone, to the Loire to Chablis? Second, leaving out the Loire and Chablis and sticking to the Rhone, which I have stayed in every summer since 1995 and a couple more before that, you have only to look at what has happened to all wines. Prior to 1995, CdPs and others were typically at 13.5 abv or so, and probably slightly lower in the 80s. Since 1998, you can’t find a wine below 14%, except in rare cooler years, and not below 14.5% since probably 09 or 10. Then, look at the number of heat waves, the constancy of drought, etc. in those years. Sure, there are producers who are happy to produce wine at 15 and even 16%. But are you seriously arguing that there are no traditional wine makers left–not Charvin, not Rayas, not Pegau–not any? And, by the way, it’s not just a matter of picking before the grapes reach those levels. Physiological ripeness is not identical with how much sugar is in the grape. That is why numbers of winemakers themselves posit climate change as the cause of the change in their wines? Why would they do that, if they think they are making better wines by increasing overripeness? You don’t look for an alibi for something you are proud of. Maybe climate change isn’t caused by human activity. I leave that to you to argue on some other board. But can you really deny the hot weather and the change in wine are likely to have something to do with each other?
I think you will find in the past complantation existed in the Chablis, the predomiant grapes were Aligoté and Cesar but . AOC regulations, the triumph of monoculture over bio diversity and the insatiable demand for cloned chardonnay basically doomed the other grape sorts. Yet we see in the champagne the revival of grapes like Meslier and Arbane as they bring a freshness that is no longer achievable with chardonnay on the sites that have become too hot…
Hmm, there’s a lot in that paragraph, I appreciate you engaging with me in conversation, but I also think we might be talking past each other a bit. I definitely wasn’t making any statement denying warming temperatures.
What I’m wondering is whether a somewhat riper, more generous style of Chablis might simultaneously be (a) an unwelcome development to people in this thread (probably including me, personally) but also (b) a positive development to the business of most Chablis producers.
You wrote:
But are you seriously arguing that there are no traditional wine makers left–not Charvin, not Rayas, not Pegau–not any?
No, I didn’t say there weren’t any. I said twice that I wonder if “most Chablis producers” view the ability to make riper wines than they could 30+ years ago consider that a positive rather than a negative.
I noted that producers who, as a stylistic choice, are seeking to make low alcohol, high acid chardonnay in various places seem to be still able to do so (without making wines that, at least to me, “lack physiological ripeness” because they’re having to be harvested prematurely). I think the same would probably be true in Chablis – if there is some, as you say, Rayas equivalent producer in Chablis, I am guessing he or she could probably still choose to still make Chablis in the style of decades ago.
What do you think, Jonathan? Do you think most Chablis producers really wish (regardless of whatever they profess publicly) they could produce 1980s Chablis today, that they would actually choose that over what we see today if they had the option?
If this were only about Chablis, I’d plead ignorance and stay silent. I drink the stuff casually, haven’t visited in over 20 years and haven’t followed the weather. But you’ve made the same argument within the last few days about the Loire and some time ago about the Rhone. I’m sure there are producers in Chablis who might like to make a wine that stresses ripe fruit and low acid, rather than freshness and mineral elements. I know there are producers in the Rhone who love that they can produce big ripe fruit and consider high alcohol a positive sign of that. But that doesn’t mean the climate doesn’t affect other producers as well. It doesn’t come down to merely harvesting earlier.
My guess is that we will see Chablis producers move from Chardonnay to Aligoté and other of these grapes around the time hell freezes over. It is much more likely that this issue goes away as older people die (most of the people on this thread are older) and people appreciate the really excellent wines still being made in Chablis and don’t have memories of a Chablis that used to taste different, just like most of us have no idea how wines from different regions tasted prior to phylloxera.
And, I remember the wonderful wines made in Germany in vintages like 1971 and 1990, but I also love the wines made in Germany in 2019, although in a different style.
People who cry about 2021 being an aberration, forget about all the off vintages in the 1970s in places like Burgundy, Chablis, Bordeaux, Germany, etc., including all the really thin wines and the ones full of rot. Great vintages have always been an aberration and likely always will be.
Why is making very ripe wine in Chablis better for the business of Chablis producers? Very ripe vintage Chablis can produce both flabby and botrytized wine and white wines with lower acidity are generally less popular at the moment.
I think it’s true that climate change has made it easer for producers in some regions (some parts of Champagne, Volnay and Pommard, etc), but I don’t think that’s going to be true in all regions.
I agree with you. There are numerous flabby or full bodied chardonnays from all over the world, do we need more from the Chablis. Chablis had an USP in the tension, minerality etc Maybe one can retain this with leaf canopy, orientation of the viness or more probably with work in the cellar´and considering the drought with irrigation.
I think the biggest challenge is the shorter growing season. When I think of the quality of Goisot’s Aligotés in the hot vintages still makes me wonder what the potential of this late ripening grape if itwas planted on the better sites of Chablis.
For consumers on this board it is likely bad…for the 99.99999% of consumers who don’t participate here and drink most of the wine the world produces it would be very good to have riper, more accessible wines since something like 97% of all wine purchased in US is consumed within 24 hours.
Look at a winery like Pieropan partnering with Gallo for distro in US, there will always be an opportunity for wider exposure, and at the end of the day these are still businesses with real costs to do soand Chardonnay is a much easier project in US vs. Garganega.
I think this is wrong on a number of levels. Chablis is a very small appellation, so changing its appeal to very broad tastes is a quixotic goal - there are limited gains to be made from changing the appeal to a more “generic” palate. In addition, there’s no shortage of central coast Chardonnay available in supermarkets in the US, but it makes no sense for Chablis to compete in that market; the wines have to be imported, go through the three tier system and customers then have to be convinced to pay extra for the wines that are now not really different from their local Chardonnays. In France there are already plenty of cheaper Chardonnay/white alternatives too.
I think it’s true that there are (extremely) large segments of the wine market that this board ignores for obvious reasons, but I also don’t think moving Chablis in that direction is much of an answer. La Chablisienne is already one of the least heralded (and by far the largest) producer in Chablis, but their wines sell fine, including to people on this board.
Incorrect, Donald: Pinot Auxerrois and Pinot Gris were the leading complanted varieties back in the day, largely for frost reasons (they bud out later than Chardonnay so are less vulnerable to Spring frosts). I don’t believe that César has ever been widely planted outside of Irancy, certainly none of the 19th century books I’ve read make any indication of that.
We’re in the middle of harvest here, so I don’t have time to really get into this. But you have excelled yourself, Donald, even if you may have had some help from Chat GPT. My article aspires to answer the question: if Chablis is the latest-ripening and coolest leading region in Burgundy, and thus one might imagine the most buffered against a warming climate, then why has Chablis’ style seem to have changed more fundamentally in years such as 2022 than Burgundy’s more southerly appellations? You don’t appear either to have engaged with that question, or to have offered any concrete points of contention with my answers.
A few points:
vintages are by definition mainly differentiated by climate
the vast, vast majority of Chablis is machine harvested, enzymatically clarified, fermented at between 18-20 degrees centigrade in stainless steel and bottled before the next vintage; and it’s produced from Chardonnay vines trellised at around 1 meter high, pruned for generous yields, and growing in soils without cover crops. If there is any part of Burgundy one can generalize about, it is Chablis.
you say that viticulture and winemaking cannot mitigate stylistic changes occasioned by climate change. But what is your basis for this contention? As a former chef/provincial wine merchant in Bad Herrenalb, Germany, what are your expertise to pronounce on this subject? And why, having said this, do you later write that “Maybe one can retain [a classic Chablis style] with leaf canopy, orientation of the viness or more probably with work in the cellar´and considering the drought with irrigation.”