Winemaker Notes
Beautiful yellow color with pale green reflections. The nose is alluring with a distinctive Chablis style of vine peaches, banana, citrus and a touch of brioche. The palate is well-balanced between richness, freshness and elegance. The rich and supple texture lingers on the end palate. Intense ripe fruits blend with vanilla, mineral and vegetal notes and complement the wine’s soft structure.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Billaud-Simon, under the guidance of Olivier Bailly, is a highly consistent producer of classic Chablis. Cool and crisp, there is concentration here allied to vibrant acidity on the palate. A benchmark Chablis which combines a more modern fruit character with the structure of wines from the past. Great length and lots of finesse here.
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Wine Enthusiast
Sourced from the finest communes, this stainless-steel-fermented Chablis immediately presents intense, warm notes of ripe apple flesh, lemon verbena leaf, white mushroom and underripe stone and melon fruits. While fleshy and round in body, the wine will benefit from holding through 2024, since the palate needs time to catch up
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.