Winemaker Notes
Sourced from a 70-year-old plot of vines within the Vaillons 1er Cru that once belonged to Billaud’s grandmother. He re-acquired the plot in 2014. Pneumatic pressing, cold settling. Alcoholic fermentation in small, thermo-regulated stainless steel tanks and neutral casks. Aging on fine lees.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Always among my favourite Chablis and a supreme example of an under-rated site, this hails from a 70-year-old vineyard and is beautifully balanced. Entirely unwooded, but with plenty of leesy weight, it's a fine, crunchy, chiselled Premier Cru with notes of celery, white pepper and wet stones and a long, tapering finish.
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Jasper Morris
Pale colour. The bouquet suggests depth of fruit with also a slightly floral note. I like the way this builds on the palate, towards a pronounced and persistent saline finish. Middleweight but with good persistence.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Chablis 1er Cru Séchet Vieilles Vignes is a worthy successor to the superb 2017 rendition, delivering aromas of crisp orchard fruit, crushed chalk, white flowers and fresh bread. Medium to full-bodied, layered and incisive, it's concentrated and penetrating, with racy acids and a long, chalky finish. Rating : 93+
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.