Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
This exceptional grand cru probably derives its longevity from the abundant clay, as well as limestone, in the soil. It's south-facing and well drained, giving ripeness and power, and that power is already evident on the nose, with its lifted but rich apple and apricot aromas with a touch of smoke. There's real heft on the attack, while the palate is compact, powerful and dense. It exhibits tension and force, with almost chewy extract as well as a lot of spice. It's still very youthful and will go the distance. Very long, with a dry finish.
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Wine & Spirits
Juicy apple and lime freshness meets lees-driven tension, giving this wine a bold first impression. The umami leesiness needs time to meld into the fruit, but the wine has stature and staying power, with all the elements to age into a beautiful grand cru Chablis.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chablis Grand Cru les Clos needs more precision and focus to come though on the nose. There are notes of green apple and chalk and a touch of dried quince in the background, although it needs to show more vigor and authority. The palate is better, with hints of toffee apple and quince on the entry, well judged acidity and flirty flecks of white peach and nutmeg toward the long finish. It actually improves with aeration and should drink well with three or four years in bottle.
Rating: 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.