Winemaker Notes
White meats, fish, shellfish.
Professional Ratings
-
Decanter
Appealing already, warm and with a sunny disposition on the palate, there is plenty of driving acidity to balance. Billaud explains that the white clay gives more power. Plenty of tension here. Will age. Not at all overripe. A fine example of Montmains with the vines averaging 35 years old. No barrels.
-
Jasper Morris
Bottled November. Pale colour, this has developed more of a grapey quality without losing the clear-cut stony qualities of Montmains. All in white fruit, not too reductive, thanks in part to the amount of flesh.
-
Vinous
The 2022 Chablis Montmains 1er Cru has a fresh and vibrant bouquet. A hint of chai infuses the citrus fruit, becoming increasingly mineral-driven as it opens in the glass. The palate is well balanced with a fine bead of acidity. A touch of white chocolate and peach skin gain depth towards the finish, but not letting go completely like Billaud's other Premier Crus. Still, this is a very classy Montmains.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Chablis 1er Cru Montmains exhibits attractive aromas of citrus zest, sweet orchard fruit, white flowers and orange zest, followed by a medium to full-bodied, ample and fleshy palate animated by bright acids and concluding with a saline 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.