Brocard Vaulorent Chablis 2008
-
Parker
Robert
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Brilliant golden-green colours with silvery-grey highlights. A nose of a great purity, very crystalline and sophisticated, on delicately anizeed and lemony notes. Rich, dense palate, with a crystalline minerality, on finely spice, iodized and anizeed notes. A delicious and powerful finish.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Like last year’s rendition, vinified and matured in a large foudre, 2008 Chablis Vaulorent had only just been bottled when I tasted it in April (without seeming to suffer any ill effects) and interestingly enough was among those premier crus for which the estate elected to utilize a screw-cap. Scents and flavors of pineapple, apricot, white currant, and grapefruit mingle with iodine, salt, and toasted nuts. This is quite glossily-textured and glycerin-rich yet infectiously juicy, insistently bright, invigorating, vibratory and refreshing. Look for 8-10 years of enjoyment from this beauty and I hope there are some cork-stoppered “control” bottles so that the differences in its evolution under different closures can be observed.
As a perfectionist, Jean-Marc Brocard naturally erected his purpose-built cellars in the centre of his vineyard to give the grapes his constant attention. Such dedication together with the best quality Chablis soil produce an exceptional wine with a typical mineral style. It is elegant and full of character. Jean-Marc Brocard’s boundless dedication to wine has borne fruit: the Brocard estate now comprises 80 hectares of vines, 65 of which are adjacent to the cellars.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
The source of the most racy, light and tactile, yet uniquely complex Chardonnay, Chablis, while considered part of Burgundy, actually reaches far past the most northern stretch of the Côte d’Or proper. Its vineyards cover hillsides surrounding the small village of Chablis about 100 miles north of Dijon, making it actually closer to Champagne than to Burgundy. Champagne and Chablis have a unique soil type in common called Kimmeridgian, which isn’t found anywhere else in the world except southern England. A 180 million year-old geologic formation of decomposed clay and limestone, containing tiny fossilized oyster shells, spans from the Dorset village of Kimmeridge in southern England all the way down through Champagne, and to the soils of Chablis. This soil type produces wines full of structure, austerity, minerality, salinity and finesse.
Chablis Grands Crus vineyards are all located at ideal elevations and exposition on the acclaimed Kimmeridgian soil, an ancient clay-limestone soil that lends intensity and finesse to its wines. The vineyards outside of Grands Crus are Premiers Crus, and outlying from those is Petit Chablis. Chablis Grand Cru, as well as most Premier Cru Chablis, can age for many years.