Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Brocard's 2017 Chablis 1er Cru Côte de Léchet unfurls in the glass with an attractive nose of ripe Meyer lemon, fresh pastry and blanched almonds. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, with good concentration, racy acids and a long, saline finish. Impressively deep, lively and persistent, this is a fine effort from Brocard
-
Wine & Spirits
Brocard’s biodynamic farming and vinification in large oak vats bring out the intensity of this steep vineyard, its rock face oriented directly toward the sun. The wine’s power comes across in precise flavors, from tart apple to juicy lemon and the red zone of a peach close to the pit. You can almost feel the wine struggling to get out from under the pressure of its leesy-hard structure, as if you can taste the future at the very end, when the entire wine turns toward freshness.
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.