We had some really excellent Chablis on Thursday night at my wine tasting group monthly tasting. Usually at these tastings, the whites are a prelude to the reds, but this month I thought as good as the reds were, the Chablis took center stage.
We had four premier crus that really took center stage. The wines were 2017 Alain Mathias Chablis Vau de Vey, 2014 La Chablisienne Chablis Le Mont de Mileu, 2014 William Fèvre Chablis Fourchaume and 2019 Laurent Tribut Chablis Côte de Lechet. All were stars, but I really responded to the richness and vibrancy of the Tribut.
We then turned to grand crus. A 2005 William Fevre Chablis Bougros Cote de Bougerots was perfectly alive (no premox) and was very enjoyable. But, the next two wines were just fabulous although way too young -
2014 Moreau-Naudet Chablis Valmur and 2014 Dublère Chablis Bougros. These wines started out as wines of potential but not showing enough but developed in the glass to be really outstanding. Wish I could have watched these wines all night long. Really two wonderful wines.
When I think of great vintages during my buying life I come up with 1982 for Bordeaux, 1999 and 2010 for Burgundy, 1990 and 2019 for German wines AND clearly 2014 for Chablis and other white Burgundy.
A question for you guys. We just had a 2005 Chablis and a bunch of 2014s and no premox. While I am sure if I open a few of my older white Burgs I could find premoxed wines, I have just realized that it has been a while since I had a premoxed white Burg. Have things gotten better over the last decade or so (yes, 2014s are now 9 years old) so that this will be less of a huge issue going forward?
What about you guys? Are you seeing less premoxed white Burgs than in the 1990s and 2000s? Are the big premox days over or did we just get smarter about producers?
Clearly not on your level of experience but have had several in the teens… between 3-12 of each wine, and had about 15-20% of all of them be totally oxidized while the remainder were perfectly fresh and wonderful. No top tier producers in the mix but certainly not basement bargain producers either…
many producers have bumped sulfur, cut batonnage, and switched to Diam. And many of us continue to ignore the bad performers—but premox still exists . . . seems to me to be a bit less often in Chablis than elsewhere but that’s anecdotal.
I had the 2014 Moreau Naudet Valmur last week at the Modern. We decanted it for an hour before we left for the restaurant. I think the wine is terrific, well balanced, with saline, oyster shell and lemon/grapefruit notes that were lifted by the wines acidity. Old school Chablis at a very high level.
Coincidentally, Howard, I had a 2014 La Chablisienne Grenouilles last night and was really impressed. I’m no expert on Chablis but it was clearly just beginning to open up, unlike the bottle tried last year. Wish I had more 2014 Chablis!
Premox is alive and well still. Less in Chablis than cote de Beaune however. Recent premoxed wines include 2017s village and 2016 1er crus meursault from Henri Germain, 2015 1er cru meursault from Buisson Charles, 2017 Bourgogne blanc of Simon Bize to name a few
My guess Alan is that you are correct. I think a lot of people have stopped buying from producers with a history of premox - based on our own experiences and from reading on this board about the experiences of others. I especially note the annual tastings by Don Cornwell (has he stopped doing these) and his wiki. And, some producers (I think of Jadot for example) have taken steps to reduce premox.
So, you are undoubtably correct that premox still exists, but hopefully one of the “perks” of reading this board is that we buy fewer wines with a higher than average risk of premox. Another way that this board is quite valuable.
We need to continue to post on the guys who are making white Burgs that age well and those who still are making wines with a high incidence of premox. Wine writers are not really in a position to do this well as they mostly taste these wines for their publications when the wines are young. So, I think it continues to be up to us to help each other.
Me too. I probably don’t buy or drink enough wines from Chablis. Thursday night was a real eye-opener in this regard. Esp. since Chablis prices (while they have definitely increased) are still excellent values compared with whites from the Cotes de Beaune.
Yes, Stephane Moreau did a fabulous job. My only visit ever to Chablis was in 2016, about a month or two before he died. What a tragedy. Such a really nice person and excellent winemaker. He was so nice to us when we visited there.
It was nice to see at the Paulee in NYC this March that his widow Virginie.is making really excellent wines.
Still a fair amount of premox, even in Chablis. Opened up a not-quite poxed, but definitely fairly advanced 17 Dauvissat Forest a few weeks ago that has me quite worried for the rest of my modest 17 Dauvissat stash
interesting you bring this up. I was looking to pick up a few 2020 white burgs and was researching one of my favorite producers. BH gave it a great score. But when I looked up notes on CT many mentions of pre mox. sorry I’m not wealthy enough to pour $500 down the drain.
Do you mind sharing if this was imported by [Vineyard Brands]?(VB | Vineyard Brands)?
Been digging through some of @William_Kelley’s old posts and learned that there are two separate bottlings on Dauvissat. Vineyard Brands spends less time in barrel and is bottled roughly 4 months prior to everything else from Dauvissat - this completely blows my mind. Trying to form my own hypothesis on the subject as I would like to source more Dauvissat, but it seams like a bit of a risky endeavor in the states…
I am reminded of the old story about Burgundy being an elephant being discussed by three blind men situated at different parts of the beast. Reports vary!! There are so many producers, so many villages and climats, you have to devote your life to figure out what is going on.
So I am not sure if the problem has gone away–which i suspect is largely true–or if everyone is just drinking their wines sooner–or maybe a little of both.
I don’t think it’s as simple as this, fortunately or unfortunately.
Last night I drank a 1982 Clos de la Barre bottled by Moillard, likely quite a bit earlier than René Lafon bottled the domaine version. Today, the Moillard version is actually fresher than the domaine-bottled version.
Sorry I missed this post when you did it, Howard, and great read through the thread. This thread may have some interest–Tran’s and my impressions of a number of 14 Chablis from last year: