Winemaker Notes
There is more clay in the soil in the Fourchaume Premier Cru vineyard than is found in other First Growths at the Domaine, so these are always among the earliest grapes to ripen. The wine was made in stainless steel vats to preserve all the typicity and freshness characteristics of Chardonnay. An edge of warmth and seeming sunshine joins the lemony, minty and floral nose of this fruity wine. The smooth palate comes in with roundness, texture and finesse, suggesting mellow apple flesh that is toned with lemon brightness. It has gorgeous depth and a crisp lingering finish.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Fresh, confited apple on the nose and palate with lovely purity and a sour/salty aftertaste. Citrus acidity will give this concentrated Fourchaume the ability to improve over a few years. Fine balance here - this wine shows that Fourchaume can be powerful yet without excessive weight.
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Jasper Morris
From four plots, three in central Fourchaume and a Vaupulent. 30-40 year old vines, among the first to be picked. Faint green tint, with an attractive nose, faintest touch of pyrazines, a bit of warmth behind. Not yet bottled, and the length is good. Slightly better balance than Beauroy.
Barrel Sample: 90-92
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.