Winemaker Notes
2019 was a vintage of extremes with frost in May and heat waves during harvest. Predictably, yields were lower than average, down 20%, but both flavors and acid concentrated in the berries resulting in complex, rich and flavorful wines with good acidity.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Beeswax, flint, dried pineapples and dried lemons on the nose. Builds in concentration on the palate, with a medium body, tangy acidity and lengthy tart citrus and flinty layers. Drink now or hold.
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Vinous
The 2019 Chablis Grenouilles Chateau Grenouilles Grand Cru has an austere, quite zen-like bouquet, very well defined, although I would like more fruit to develop. It is almost too distant at the moment. The palate is well balanced on the entry and quite saline, malic at first, followed by a spicy, Les Preuses-like note that surfaces toward the finish. Good length. This should drink well for at least a decade.
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Wine Spectator
A lemon- and floral-flavored white marked by flashes of mint and vanilla. Rich, then the lively structure emerges, ending with more precision and cut. Satisfying, if atypical. Drink now through 2026. 198 cases imported.
Chablis, half way between Paris and Beaune, forms the real gateway to Burgundy ’s treasure-house of wines. The vineyards, lying on both sides of the River Serein, cover 6,800 hectares (some 17,000 acres) in 20 villages. Of the 4,700 hectares in production, La Chablisienne alone represents nearly 25% and produces every one of the Chablis appellations.
The production of the whole vineyard reaches 250 000 hectolitres per annum. Chablis is therefore thefirst producer of white wine in Burgundy. The wines are made from a single grape variety, the Chardonnay which finds in the soil of Chablis the matter for its superb fineness.
Our winery groups nearly 300 winegrowers to produce the great white wines of Chablis. These wines reflect the utmost care our winegrowers devote to the cultivation of their vineyards and the commitment our winemakers bring to revealing the heart and soul of the wines. It is this subtle harmony between the grower in the vineyards, the technical advisor and the winemaker which bestows on our wines their much sought-after distinction.
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.