Domaine Frederic & Celine Gueguen Chablis Blanchot Grand Cru 2016
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Wilfred
Wong
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
A brilliant yellow color, a fine and very fruity nose. We obtain wines with powerful minerality, with aromas of almonds or leather with age, with flavors of ripe fruit.
Ideal pairings include Fish in hollandaise sauce, lobster salad, & mature goat cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: There is often a misconception that "Grand Cru" is bigger than "Premier Cru." and that is not necessarily the reality. When I tasted the "GC" Blanchot after this winery's "PCs" I found a more concentrated wine with a longer and more elegant finish. The 2016 Domaine Frédéric - Céline Grand Cru Blanchot is persistent and beautifully balanced. TASTING NOTES: This wine is tremendously active. Its aromas and flavors of fresh ocean brine, dried citrus, and piquant minerality deliver the perfect match with a dozen or two raw oysters. (Tasted: September 11, 2018, San Francisco, CA USA)
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.