Winemaker Notes
Domaine Christian Moreau Pere et Fils owns a total of 7.5 acres of this most famous of the Grand Crus of Chablis, more than any other producer in the region. Their primary parcel sits on the high portion of the hillside with a direct southeast exposure. With the steep grade, drainage of the kimmeridgien soils is quick leading to low yields of the densely planted vines.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Aromas of citrus blossom and chalk dust lead into lemon, vanilla, peach and mineral in this elegant, yet powerful white. Really expressive of place, this evolves across the palate, cascading into a long aftertaste of citrus and mineral. There's a fine seashore intensity. Best from 2013 through 2030.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A combination of fresh lemon, fusil, crushed chalk and white truffle in the nose of the Moreau 2008 Chablis Les Clos puts me in mind a bit of 1996, with musky narcissus and peony adding seductive intrigue. But there is a silken texture and a succulent generosity of white peach to accompany the bright lemon and grapefruit that would not have been present in many 1996s. Indeed, this is munificent by the standards of its site, vintage, and compared with previous wines I have tasted from the Moreau domaine. But beyond all the animal, floral, and sweetly-fruited depth present (at under 13% alcohol, it should be noted), there is all the cut and clarity, and all the saturation of chalk, salt, and iodine that one could wish for under the rubric of “minerality.” Peach kernel and citrus rind add piquancy to an expansive and sustained finish. This will be worth following for at least ten or a dozen years; and here’s hoping it will still stand erect when the roll is called two decades from now. A small portion of the wine – which I did not taste – had been bottled only a few weeks before my visit, but the majority, including the bottle I sampled, had been bottled along with the rest of the Moreau 2008 crus, in September.
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Wine Enthusiast
Rich and concentrated wine, with apricot and peach fruit as well as a tight mineral character. This is a wine for aging, its rich fruits bolstered by an impressive integration with the toast, smoothing and rounding the whole wine.
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.