Winemaker Notes
One of the great insider wines, Montée de Tonnerre, expresses many of the characteristics of Grand Cru Chablis which should come as no surprise as it is located on an adjacent hillside to the grand crus but with western exposure. This is a powerful wine in contrast to the more delicate and charming premier crus like Vaillons and Montmains, and it rewards the patience of those who wait a few years before pulling the cork.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Chablis 1er Cru Montée de Tonnerre is a particular success this year, delivering aromas of pear and peach mingled with notions of nutmeg, freshly baked bread, white flowers and mint. Medium to full-bodied, concentrated and multidimensional, it's a satiny, seamless wine with excellent concentration and a long, expansive finish.
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Jasper Morris
A clear pure colour. There is a burnt toast reduction, possibly pyrazines, on the nose. The fruit on the palate would be lovely without this impact, a little rosewater on the pure white orchard fruit, but just the burnt toast in the way at the moment. An impressive long finish.
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.