Winemaker Notes
Beautiful white gold hue and delicate pale green reflections. The nose discloses
aromas of citrus and white flowers. The palate is rich, smooth and opulent with the
perfect balance between a smooth texture, lively acidity, discreet minerality and
fruit.
Pair with baked fish parcels, grilled sole, or roasted cod loin.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Longer aged than the classic Chablis cuvée, with 25% matured in wood of different sizes. Plenty of weight and intensity from a selection of parcels just outside Montée de Tonnerre. Spicy, with some intriguing white pepper notes, Olivier Bailly says this will improve for at least three years. A wine to accompany food.
Barrel Sample: 92 -
James Suckling
I love the lemon-blossom character of this very bright Chablis, which has a lovely balance of oyster-shell character, creaminess from sur-lie maturation and racy acidity. Long, chalky finish with enough energy to give this plenty of aging potential.
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Jasper Morris
Whereas in the previous incarnation of Domaine Billaud-Simon, the Tête d’Or cuvée could be aggressively oaky, now the philosophy is to make a wine from the best plots, such as those close to Montée de Tonnerre, along with Pargues from the left bank, and to vinify around 20% in wood of various shapes and sizes. This makes for a really impressive wine in 2020 which is likely to be bottled in January 2022 with the crus. This comes over at first as more chiselled with only on the second half of the palate the weight of fruit plus a little oak support starting to show. Quite intense, with medium acidity and good persistence. This will need time in bottle.
Barrel Sample: 88-91
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.