Winemaker Notes
Complex bouquet with floral and fruity aromas and intense mineral notes. Robust palate in its youth, evolving towards subtlety and elegance after a few years.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
This powerful, thrilling wine shows pronounced, ripe aromas of mirabelle plum, nectarine and green apple, with a strong underpinning of flinty minerality and smoky reduction. The texture is tightly wound and compact; it's substantial, but not heavy, carrying the wine to a marvellously long finish. The grapes are from 2.24ha in the lieux-dits Pied d'Aloup, Côte de Bréchain (planted 1936), and Chapelot, fermented in a combination of tank and cask, ageing now on the lees prior to bottling. Ideally wait five years before opening and drink over the next 30.
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Jasper Morris
Lemon and lime in colour with a concentrated sunny but not exotic nose, plums not peaches. This embryonic Chablis tightens up quite considerably on the palate, reinforcing the sense of notable intensity. A light marmalade note that is not unpleasant infuses the finish. Barrel sample: 91-94
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Chablis 1er Cru Montée de Tonnerre unites a solar personality of the year with tension, delivering aromas of beeswax, pear, orange peel and fennel, mingling with oyster liquor. Medium- to full-bodied, the palate is tangy and textural, with considerable depth and a long, saline finish.
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Wine Spectator
A rich version, laced with honeysuckle, peach, yellow plum and August meadow, plus a flash of cinnamon. Balanced and charming, with a mineral undercurrent on the mouthwatering aftertaste.
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.