Winemaker Notes
Light yellow in color with golden reflections. The nose is rich yet delicate with mineral, creamy, floral and slightly iodized notes combined with a touch of honey and dried fruits. The palate reveals a direct attack and a powerful, well-honed and distinctive mid-palate. This wine offers a remarkable reflection of its clay terroir. Aromas of citrus blend harmoniously with mineral and iodized notes from its outstanding terroir.
Pair with scallop carpaccio, barbecued salmon skewers, or whiting fillet.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Made from 70-year-old vines, a small part of the blend was matured in old casks, the rest in vats. This is powerful, complex, but also refined and understated. Crisp, vibrant acidity, subtle wood notes and a long, lingering, mineral finish. A touch of the iron fist in a velvet glove.
Barrel Sample: 96 -
Jasper Morris
Pure mid primrose, the nose suggests the cashmere which I expect to follow. As has been the case in the last few years this is a magisterial expression of Preuses, just a touch of spice, white fruit, and an intensity which develops beautifully right through to the back of the palate. Very fine! Seventy year old vines help to explain the quality of this wine.
Barrel Sample: 94-96
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.