Garnier et Fils Mont de Milieu Premier Cru Chablis 2015
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Wine Spectator
The 2015 Chablis 1er Cru Mont de Milieu is cemented with indigenous yeasts in 600-litre demi-muids and matured over 16 months. It has a crisp lemon curd and apple blossom-scented bouquet, with just a faint whiff of brioche on the background. There is fine detail and delineation here. The palate is very well balanced, with a fine bead of acidity and veins of mango and passion fruit that dovetail into a long and persistent finish. Excellent.
Brothers Xavier and Jérôme Garnier share a passion for wine and the Chablis region, where their family has owned a 23-hectare estate for many decades. While their father sold grapes to negoçiants, the brothers began making their own wine in 1996, selling it to restaurants in and around Paris. Garnier & Fils uses traditional, environmentally friendly, organic practices; they harvest later than most, ferment with natural yeast, and age the wines in very large barrels. Improving every year, this exciting estate is already achieving greatness with its Chablis, which offers a delicate salinity that reflects the vineyard’s unique soil profile.
Their wines include a Chablis Village, which is a lovely entry-level bottle, as well as 1er Cru and Grand Cru. Jérôme works the vineyards, and Xavier makes the wines. Together, they are leading a group of newer producers finding their voice in the northernmost part of Chablis. They recognize it takes much more work to produce high-quality wines in such a cool region. They are also proving the extra effort is well worth it, as the soft-spoken brothers go above and beyond to create beautifully balanced wines with exceptional ripeness, freshness, and minerality, boasting a lush mouthfeel and texture, as well as bright, textured acidity.
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.