Huh? German Riesling has been getting drier over the past 10 years, so I don’t know what this is supposed to mean or how it is relevant to the Chablis discussion.
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They most certainly aren’t.
Many Kabinett wines are now stylistically something that would easily pass for a Spätlese in the past, Spätlesen are more at Auslese level of ripeness and many Auslesen are simply huge now - very different to those wines they used to make there. This both from the perspective of fruit ripeness and RS. It seems to be more and more difficult to find wines at approx. 15 g/l - most wines tend to hover around 30-40 g/ and upwards.
Sure, with the introduction (and subsequent popularity) of GGs, there are now more dry Rieslings than ever, but still the sweeter Rieslings have been getting sweeter, not drier, over the past 10 years.
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Honestly Chris I feel like you are trying have it both ways. For me me “lean fruit and searing acids” is way too exaggerated for Chablis. If I asked was to characterise Chablis in five words I might saysomething like “crisp, refreshing with nice minerality”.
Maybe you do see them as wines with searing acidity but I don’t and I have been buying and cellaring Chablis since the 2002s were released.
Your initial argument seems to me to be largely hypotheical and based on assumptions that are not well supported. Thus I am not surprised at some of the responses.
Cheers Brodie
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Compared to generations past I agree, but compared to 10-15 years ago, the wines are not as big, sweet and exaggerated, and there are also more dry wines being made.
Chris, you’re making a guess with no basis. The warmer period over the last few years has nothing to do with the prices of Chablis or its popularity.* The warmest of the most recent vintages is the most available at retail and the least well rated. Your “hunch” is slightly correlative but no more than that.
*Every region has gotten warmer. If Chablis has risen significantly in price, why haven’t the other regions?
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Okay, my guess is indeed a guess, as I’ve said throughout, and it could totally be wrong.
I mostly just wanted to engage in the question of whether what we WBers hope for is necessarily the same as what the producers would choose or are choosing. But you don’t always get to have a thread consider the angle you find interesting, and that’s fine — I have been too slow or stubborn to concede that in this instance. I’ll just read from here forward and stop being an irritant. [I don’t say that with bitterness, and I’m interested to learn from reading the rest of the thread if it continues.]
Berserk onward.
admittedly reading from the bottom up so i may be missing context, but haven’t most other regions risen in price, usually significantly?
I don’t have data at my fingertips but my impression is that most Rioja an SA whites have only had moderate increases.
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i stand corrected!
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I don’t have time to get into a detailed discussion about this right now, but pradikat level ripeness and sweetness are not necessarily tied. The emergence of feinherb as a concept has moderated sweetness in the last decade. Also the excesses of the 2005-2011 period have moderated somewhat. It’s producer by producer, and sometimes wine by wine, so very hard to generalize.
That said, I would never try to compare and contrast trends in Chablis and German Riesling. I am really not sure what Larry was trying to get at.
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I’d say, it’s worth asking a few Chalbis producers what they think. With my conversations with them, they are happy that they have a bit more ripeness, but are wary of losing their acidity. It’s just different, and they have to work differently to get an end product that exhibits the voice of their desired product. It’s a change overall, and as winegrowers and winemakers, they are adapting.
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Yeah it’s complicated.
It’s got drier and sweeter. Let’s leave it at that. 
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brief pause to revel at the english language that these are understood as opposites in the context of wine.
carillon
Fascinating theory that could actually make sense
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It’s not just acid it’s that stony limpid quality as well in classic Chablis (below GC wines, which have always seemed to be different not just in quality).
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Perhaps for GC which sometimes seem to be half way between “Chablis” and “Burgundy” if that makes sense.
Compared to Burgundy?
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yeah, northern rhone, piedmont, champagne, loire ?
but NOT south african whites and riojas.
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True, acid is not the only consideration, which is why this is such a complex topic - and not easily defined by simple assessments.
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Many thanks to everybody who answered, I’ve learned a lot.
Some comments, answers and of course questions:
Greg K wrote that “Chablis is a very small appellation”.
I don’t know how you define that, but ‘Chablis’ covers ~9000 acres and produces ~2 million cases a year. Add in Petit Chablis (~3K acres, ~650K cases), 1er Cru (~2K acres, ~400K cases) and Grand Cru (~250 acres, ~50K cases) and you’re talking about production in the range of Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay! That’s a lot of wine. Even if only 10% of Chablis is sold in the U.S., that’s a lot of wine.
Overall wine consumption is stagnant or dropping slightly. Red sales are down, Rose stable at best, with white wine growing a little. In unsettled times, people look for ‘comfort food’, ie, classics. Sales of Chablis and Sancerre are growing fast. IIRC, the vineyard area of Chablis has been expanded pretty dramatically. But even with a bigger vineyard, some recent harvests have had low yields and demand is up. So prices are up, but except for a few trophies (hello Raveneau), I think they remain reasonable, especially compared to the Cote de Beaune. Yes, the wines seem to be lower in acidity over the past decade, and I have to wonder if (as I quoted William Kelley in my OP) growers who want to maintain their traditional style won’t be able to adjust vineyard and cellar techniques to at least partially mitigate the change in climate.
My thanks to Trevor C and others who posted the link to the Chablis website with the 47 Climats and a brief explanation of the difference between lieux-dit and Climats. However the 47 Climats apply only to the Premier and Grand Crus.
My key questions remain:
Are there vineyards in the Chablis Appellation with comparable soils to the Premier Crus, that can now ripen fruit to the level that earned the Premier Crus their designations?
Do the vineyards in the Chablis Appellation have lieux-dit? If so can they legally be named on labels? Are the recently planted Chablis vineyards in terroirs that can yield wines comparable to historic Chablis?
This is obviously not an appropriate time to engage in theoretical and philosophical discussions with vignerons in Chablis, but once the harvest is over, I will reach out and ask some questions.
If there are any board members (lurkers also!) with granular knowledge of Chablis, please chime in.
Last question (for this post):
I note that Patrick Piuze is bottling six different ‘terroirs’, all available in the same vintage at a NY store. I will be in NY the 2nd week of December. Is there any board interest in an OL, specifically to compare these bottlings?
Again, thanks to all.
Dan Kravitz
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