Winemaker Notes
From vines with an average age of 25-40 years planted on Kimmeridgien soils, the wine is vinified and aged in stainless steel tanks, with the aging time ranging from 5 to 10 years or more depending on the vintage. Its enchanting aromas of mango, peach and lemongrass lead into a fruity and pleasurable, yet highly mineraled and balanced palate.
Would be excellent with scallops with saffron butter, scalloped veal and various French cheeses such as Chaource, Langres or Epoisses.
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
Grown at both ends of the valley, Les Epinottes and Les Mélinots, with old vines in both plots. 25% wood. Very pale colour. Cool and backward, no signs of excess ripeness here. All in white fruit, barely even any lemons, with the requisite drier stony finish and the pleasing youthful grip. A fine example. Barrel Sample: (92-94)
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Vinous
The 2022 Chablis Vaillons 1er Cru has a composed and quite mineral-driven bouquet that is more complex and terroir-driven than its peers. The palate is well-balanced with a keen thread of acidity, grapefruit and lime. The 2022 has a bitter lemon finish. I admire its focus and energy—a well-crafted Vaillons.
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.