Winemaker Notes
Bright, clear hue with intense golden green glimmers. The nose is elegant, delicate and characterized by floral notes of acacia and lime blossom combined with soft waves of citrus fruits. The palate is rich, dense and opulent. The aromatic profile reveals toasty notes and candied fruits. The finish is long, tonic and very mineral.
Pair pike in a langoustine coulis or sea bass in a salt crust.
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
Just two stainless steel barrels made. Clear pale bright lemon straw. The nose is very intense without offering too much detail. All in white fruit as so often, plenty of weight so not so floral, but you can feel the underlying bench of white marly limestone. Long finish.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Decanter
Billaud-Simon have just over 7ha, with only two steel barrels produced (700 bottles). Additional richness and concentration here. Sunny, very ripe fruit but not at all heavy, with the oak beautifully integrated, then a mineral, chalky finish.
Barrel Sample: 93
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.