Winemaker Notes
It is the great lord of the Grand Crus. It gives wines of exceptional straight-line structure and power through its volume and intensity. It expresses a vast aromatic range with notes of ripe fruit, such as peach, but also oyster shell and smokiness. The palate impresses through its freshness, power and mineral balance. A fine reductive aspect may be found, carried by the marine flavors of oyster shell, lemon and flint. This is a great, complex wine with exceptional keeping potential. It will go well with all noble fish (monkfish, turbot) or more highly-seasoned dishes such as sushi.
*This wine was formally named Chablis Les Clos Grand Cru. In 2020 one small parcel that historically and culturally has been considered part of Les Clos for centuries fell into a legal grey area when the INAO decided that it was uncertain if it was part of Les Clos or Valmur. Due to this reason, this wine will bear the name Grand Cru Chablis Hommage à Louis until the confusion is resolved.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Weighty, profound and rich, this is a stunning Les Clos which has an extra level of depth and richness that would please many a Côte-d'Or fan. White flowers on the nose, spice and stone fruit on the palate with 40% oak and a lingering, freshening mineral undertow. A grand cru with gravitas that will drink for 15-20 years. Droin has 1.4ha with vine age averaging 40 years. Its plots are located in various sectors of the cru with some lower down in the western sector, and part on the blue clay soils on the mid-slope.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
As readers will remember, the 2021 Chablis Grand Cru Hommage à Louis is a result of a dispute with the INAO—who contended that part of the Droin family's historic parcel of Les Clos, named as such on the cadastre and always labeled accordingly, is in fact Valmur—and while that dispute is close to resolution, the "Hommage" label will endure, at least through the 2021 vintage. Revealing aromas of Myer lemon, pear, white flowers and almond paste, it's full-bodied, satiny and layered, with a concentrated core of sweet fruit, lively acids and a long, chalky finish. It's a terrific effort in a challenging vintage.
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Vinous
The 2021 Chablis Les Clos Hommage à Louis Grand Cru has a wonderful bouquet that truly expresses the nobility of Les Clos. It is quite complex with fine mineralité under the veneer of oak that will be subsumed with time. The palate is fresh on entry, taut and fresh, quite sapid with a bright and very persistent 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.