Christian Moreau Chablis Les Clos Grand Cru 2018
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
An incredibly complex and delicious Chardonnay that easily holds its weight against the great masters in Puligny, Meursault and Corton-Charlemagne. Muscular yet refined and finessed, it greets the nose with a hedonistic bouquet of lush citrus, tart green apples, white flowers, fresh herbs and delicate yet pronounced saline minerals, all supported by just the slightest hint of toast. Laser-precise on the palate with zippy acidity and immaculate detail.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
As I often do when they're young, I slightly prefer this bottling to the Moreaus' Clos des Hospices in 2018 (it scored 94). This comes from a single, 2ha block that's picked in three tranches and vinified separately. Marrying oaked and stainless components in equal measure, it's a wonderfully complex expression of this brilliant site showing a combination of power, texture and racy, chalky acidity. The Vaillons 1er Cru scored 94.
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James Suckling
This is in such good form in 2018 with a very attractive and very rich, layered and complete feel. The flinty nose has intense lemons, grapefruit and white peaches, as well as limes. The palate has very composed, weighty and quite compressed, fleshy power. Try from 2026.
Barrel Sample: 93-94 -
Wine Spectator
Not showy in any way, this white is harmonious and graceful, yet with an underlying intensity that keeps building on the palate to a long conclusion. Peach, melon, lemon and baking spices are punctuated by a stony, minerally saline element that caps the lingering aftertaste. Drink now through 2027.
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Jasper Morris
Clear bright colour. The fruit has a slight tropical fruit exuberance to it. This soon calms down to reveal a more classical kimmeridgian purity. Very intense indeed, and somebody has just squeezed a mite of lemon juice over the bench of white fruit. Quite tightly wound, and very persistent.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos is also showing well, exhibiting notions of orange rind, confit lemon and green apple, followed by a full-bodied, layered palate that's racier and chalkier than the fleshier, blockier Valmur.
Barrel Sample: 91-93
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Christian Moreau, one of the leading figures in Chablis, is producing the wines he loves under his own name. Free of any personal involvement with the negociant company that his family founded and sold, with his son Fabien they founded Domaine Christian Moreau Pére et Fils in 2001 and set up their winemaking operation in the very heart of the Chablis country, at the foot of its famous Grands Cru vineyards.
The Domaine holdings are located in the best oriented parcels, and bottlings include Grand Crus Les Clos, Valmur, Vaudésir, Blanchot, and Les Clos des Hospices (a Monopole from the Moreau family), Premier Cru Vaillon, as well as Chablis AC, and some Petit Chablis. Every parcel is harvested by hand to bring out the very best from each vineyard. The Moreau's winemaking philosophy is non-interventionist at its core, entailing biodynamic practices aimed toward creating low-yield, high-quality harvests. Additionally, grapes for every wine from the Chablis AC to the Les Clos Grand Cru are hand-picked.
Fabien Moreau became the winemaker with the 2002 vintage, and is already producing remarkable results. With previous experience in New Zealand, Fabien is a visionary young winemaker who is a sincere adherent to the tenants of terroir. As such, the wines of Christian Moreau Pere et Fils are remarkable for their authenticity, distinctiveness, and exquisite quality.
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.