Winemaker Notes
The classiest nose in the cellar, it lingers the longest, too. Very mineral, the essence of a great Chablis. Oily and round fruit with ripe melons and apple butter that is caramelized. The flavors linger long into the finish. Killer Chablis.
Professional Ratings
-
Decanter
Clean, fresh, driven and with great purity, this balances soft, ripe peach fruit, a dash of lemon/lime zest and a saline character on the very long finish. Super concentrated, elegant and precise, this restrained, less showy, Les Clos will be exceptional in 5-10 years. Louis Michel's plot lies in the western part of Les Clos, halfway up the slope on blue clay soils.
-
Jasper Morris
Pale lemon colour. The bouquet is the most backward to date, but with a measure of steel which promises well. Very good tension, pure and clean white fruit with grand cru grip, and fine length, especially for the vintage. One to look out for. Powerful in a compact style! Drink from 2027-2035.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos is one of the richer, more muscular wines of the vintage. Unwinding in the glass with aromas of sweet orchard fruit, white flowers, clear honey, toasted nuts and youthful reduction, it's full-bodied, satiny and seamless, with a layered core, bright acids and a long, saline finish.
-
Vinous
The 2021 Chablis Les Clos Grand Cru has a well-defined and quite succinct bouquet with hints of apricot and nectarine that complement the citrus fruit. Just missing a little mineralité perhaps, but I appreciate the precision. The palate is well balanced with a fine bead of acidity, a more linear Les Clos with a fresh, quite spicy almost Preuses-like finish. Very fine.
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.