Winemaker Notes
The 2012 Chablis is a ripe, yet bone dry Chardonnay with crisp green apple, mineral and a touch of saline. The versatile, affordable, village Chablis from Domaine Christian Moreau Pere et Fils is bright and crisp, with the classic, taut structure and refreshing minerality that define traditional Chablis.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Spectator
Rich, with fine cut framing the apple, lemon and melon flavors. A chalky intensity leaves a puckering sensation, but the mineral element lingers. Give this time to settle down. Best from 2016 through 2024.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Bottled a few weeks before my June tasting, the generic Moreau 2012 Chablis displays tart-edged but succulent apple, white peach and white currant wreathed in wintergreen, its tartness harnessed to juicy refreshment and displaying an unmistakable if subtle expression of salt, stone and iodine characteristic of its genre. The sense of lift – even at nearly 13% alcohol, a figure typical for the Moreaus’ vintage collection, but on the high side for wines of this vintage – delightfully complements the cooling, downright thirst-quenching character of this fine value and remarkably eloquent exemplar of its modest appellation. Enjoy through 2015.
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.