Winemaker Notes
Remarkably complex bouquet, blending fruity, floral and spicy notes with a substantial mineral touch. Structured palate, opening up with age to give powerful, generous wines.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
This is in stunning form in 2017, showcasing the kind of symphonic complexity of primary fruit and effortless power that makes it so revered. Limes and lemons, white and yellow peaches, some apples and shaved fennel, fresh chalk and fresh flowers, too. The palate has such seamless and unwavering linearity, driven by contained acidity that delivers a wake of fleshy, white-peach, lime and lemon-curd flavor. So long, seamless and fresh. This is an exceptional Clos. Drink or hold.
-
Decanter
No one can rival William Fèvre's 4.12ha of holdings in Chablis' most prestigious grand cru, much of it from old vines. The wine is leesy, waxy and complete, showing understated wood, layers of citrus and umami, and the power and backbone to age in bottle. Drinking Window 2022 - 2035
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Revisiting Fèvre's 2017 Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos six months later, as I was completing this report, I was also inclined to upgrade my score, as the wine is bouncing back from its recent bottling with a vengeance. Its pure and charming bouquet of ripe citrus fruits, crisp yellow apples, beeswax and spring flowers is now complemented by classy nuances of oyster shell and warm bread; and on the palate, the wine remains full-bodied, ample and satiny-textured, with an enveloping core of fruit, ripe but succulent acids and a long, precise and delicately chalky finish, but its impressive structuring extract and depth of concentration are even more apparent. In short, don't miss this superb effort. Rating: 95+
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Over the years, I have enjoyed plenty of glasses of the William Fèvre Les Clos Chablis. Always on the more generous side, this wine has played well on my palate. TASTING NOTES: This wine is generous from start to finish. Its aromas of ripe fruit and cream stay long and lush on the palate. Pair it with any preparation of shellfish, and you'll be fine. (Tasted: March 14, 2019, San Francisco, CA)
-
Wine & Spirits
This presents grand cru credentials in its size, lemon richness, powerful structure and stalwart tannins. Pale and leesy, everything about this wine is big and white. Check on it ten years from the vintage, when the flavors should be more accessible.
Domaine William Fèvre is a historical and environmental pioneer in Chablis. The domaine covers a total of 78 hectares, including 15 hectares of Grand Cru vineyards as the largest Grand Cru landowner in Chablis. The domaine is also comprised of 16 hectares of Premiers Crus, including icons such as Vaulorent, Montmains, and Les Lys, among many others. William Fèvre has been committed to a strong environmental approach for more than 20 years, receiving their HVE3 certification in 2014. Domaine William Fèvre does everything possible to express the most subtle variations in Chablis' climats and to offer wines that give everyone, from novices to connoisseurs, the opportunity to enjoy an experience characterized by a superb expression of purity and minerality.
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.