Les Clos

As befits the well-exposed Grand Cru site, the fruit profile here is towards the stone fruit end of the spectrum. Spicy, rich, and with a hint of oak, there is outstanding concentration, a chalky minerality and a satisfying, long finish of pain d’épices. Drink 2021-2030.
Adam Bruntlett, Burgundy Buyer

The legendary Louis Pinson himself retired in 1983, having made some fabulous oldstyle Chablis. His great-grand-daughter, Charlène, along with her father Laurent and her uncle Christophe are now in charge. There is a Rue Pinson in Chablis, dating back to an earlier generation when three Pinson brothers lived in identical houses on the street. Everything is hand-harvested, with sorting of the grapes both in the vineyard and at the winery. The wines are wild-fermented, mostly in stainless steel tanks, before barrel ageing, with the proportion of oak depending on the cuvée. Despite describing 2016 as a testing year, Laurent Pinson and his daughter Charlène are upbeat, declaring themselves very happy with the quality of the grapes and resultant wines. Volumes are down in many cases, and the limited-production Cuvée Mademoiselle has not been made this year.

Pale in colour with a fine, light green tint, this is massively concentrated and flinty. Although backward, you can see what will happen when it is eventually ready. The most complete wine of all in the mouth, with striking minerals wreathed in concentrated fruit, this is ripe but not over-ripe.

The vineyards near to Chablis itself were affected by the heat at Whitsun, which damaged the flowering, so the quantity of wine is no better than last year. Outlying communes, however, were less impacted. Benoît began the harvest early, on 11th September. He compares 2014 to 1996, 2007 (only richer) and 2010 (only more mineral). A recent development here is for the wines to be fermented using their own indigenous yeasts.

A combination of all the above Grands Crus, only more so: Les Clos manages to be the most powerful wine, with the greatest concentration of fruit, yet retaining a driving elegance throughout. Minerals abound, and the finish shows extraordinary persistence.

The grapes were picked by hand between 15th and 22nd September in good weather conditions. The Premiers Crus will be bottled in December or January, the Grands Crus a little later. The fresh style of the wines is dictated by the summer temperatures, both July and August being cooler than average. The different terroirs are beautifully delineated this year and the range offers some fascinating contrasting pairings: Vaillons/Mont de Milieu; Montée de Tonnerre/Vauloren and Les Preuses/ Côte Bouguerots for example.

Clear, cool, refined, insistent and powerful; half of this is barrel-fermented. A spice or two shows the sunshine of the vintage but this is really classic, mineral Chablis, enormously long. Grand vin, the terroir wins out. Drink 2021-2030.
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer

We visited Benoît Droin towards the end of the 2015 harvest. “If you had seen me a week ago, straight after the hail, I was on the point of committing suicide, but actually things have turned out much better than we feared,” he told us. Yields were of course affected in several vineyards but the wines across the board are extremely fine. The proportion of wood used reflects the style rather than the seniority of each cuvée.

A beautiful, very pale primrose, the nose is classy, showing the oak a bit at first, but then the noble fruit emerges. There is huge volume here, ultra-concentrated white fruit (maybe white-fleshed peaches), a touch of wood and then the spice of ripeness without undue weight. This is very impressive but Bougerots maybe wins this year. Drink 2022-2032.
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer

In common with most of his colleagues, Didier Séguier was ready to harvest in early September; starting on Thursday 3^rd with the vineyards which had been hit by the hail storm earlier in the week. The damage was to volume rather than quality and certainly just from tasting it was not possible to see where the hail had fallen. These are powerful wines which have nonetheless retained the qualities of classic Chablis.

Part vinified in new wood and all aged in barrel before bottling after 15 months, this wine is up to the same standard of their great 2010. It has a fabulous nose, the wood perfectly integrated with a fine depth of powerful white fruit, excellent acidity and exceptional long term potential.
Jasper Morris MW, Berrys' Burgundy Director Every year we like these wines, and every year when we try the wines that we bought the year before, we like them even more. Laurent Pinson and his daughter Charlène are doing a wonderful job and producing outstanding Chablis for very reasonable prices. All of the wines are hand harvested and the 1ers Crus are matured in barrel, though without the influence of new wood.

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The bouquet here is not yet ready to speak but it suggests great density and poise. There are powerful shoulders to the wine and while it has not yet had time for the finesse to show, it is certainly present and waiting. Wave after wave of flavour covers the palate, with spicy notes attached to the flesh and deep fruit, before an utterly explosive finish.
Jasper Morris MW, Berrys' Burgundy Director Picking started as early as 31st August at Domaine William Fèvre, which is extraordinarily early for Chablis, but a good decision seeing as it preserved the essential acidity in grapes which were ripe in their low-yielding vineyards. The crop was reduced on the right bank after a touch of frost slightly disturbed flowering and hail which arrived on 28th June. Didier Séguier, the talented winemaker, draws some parallels with 2000 and, in terms of the moderate but balanced acidity, 2002 – both of which are fine vintages indeed for Chablis. All of the wines listed below were farmed organically in 2011.

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Fifty percent barrel-fermented, this is – as ever – incredibly complex and tightly wound. Packed with vibrant fruit on the entry, it tightens up with a core of citrus, finishing on notes of hot, flinty stones. Sublime. Drink 2022-2032.
Adam Bruntlett, Burgundy Buyer

The Droins have been producing wines in Chablis for nearly 400 years (their history as vignerons goes back at least to 1620). Benoît represents the 14th generation, having taken over from his father Jean-Paul. The domaine owns 13 hectares of vineyards and produces 14 different wines, including seven Premiers Crus and five Grands Crus. Benoît runs a sophisticated operation from a large modern winery almost in the shadow of the Grands Crus. He has revised his pruning system and significantly reduced yields; while in the cellar the principal change has been away from new oak. Visiting Benoît Droin in spring 2017 was a sobering affair; row upon row of stainless steel tanks stood empty, their doors hanging open as a stark reminder of the damage caused by the frost and twin hailstorms of the nightmarish 2016 vintage. Despite making just half his normal crop, Benoît remained philosophical and announced himself delighted with the vintage, explaining that he feels there is greater concentration and better balance than the sunnier 2015s. Unfortunately, there is no Fourchaume this year.

This has a very classic Chablis nose, combined with white peach and just a hint of oak. Incredible power and persistence, tension and energy; it’s still a baby. Spine-tingling with plenty of chewy phenolic matière; this needs time to knit together, but all of the elements are there in spades. Drink 2025-2037.
Adam Bruntlett, Burgundy Buyer

This leading Chablis domaine was developed by the eponymous William Fèvre between 1957 and his retirement in 1998 when he sold to the Champagne House Joseph Henriot. Since then the wines have been made by the talented Didier Séguier who had previously been with the Bouchard team in Beaune. The domaine wines include 12 hectares of Premier Cru vineyards and no less than 16 hectares of Grands Crus. Everything is harvested by hand. The Premier Cru wines are vinified in 30 to 50 percent oak, the Grands Crus 50 to 70 percent, all in oneyear-old barrels from Bouchard. Didier Séguier described 2016 as a complicated vintage which was saved by a warm, dry summer and a cool northerly wind just before harvest, allowing the grapes to ripen without achieving high sugar levels. The resultant small grapes have given concentrated wines of great finesse. He feels this is a vintage which will produce wines of good early approachability, while also being interesting to serious Chablis lovers who will appreciate the mineral backbone. Keen to preserve this minerality, Dider has not used any new oak this year.

Pale but intense and ultra-concentrated, this displays very dense white fruit and an edge of smokiness. Highly impressive, there is weight and fruit richness, with lovely lemon-scented notes,  brilliant intensity and a fine suave finish. Another great example of Les Clos magic. 
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer

Benoît began harvesting on 26th September so almost everything was picked before the rain. Supply is down 30 percent because of the flowering but there was very little rot. It all passed off without problem during vinification and in the cellar.

The warmth and the weight of the year are evident in Droin's 2009 Grand Cru Chablis Les Clos with excellent acidity and a powerful mineral core creating a perfect balance. It is reminiscent of flinty minerals and baked rich Madeira cake, and will be monumental when it is ready.

From first sniff, this is a fabulous wine. Tasting it, even in its youth, brings a smile to the face. There is a brilliant rich white fruit bouquet and a great density of flavour on the palate. This wine displays a serene quality, with tremendous intensity of fruit, yet light on its feet. Terrific!
Jasper Morris MW - Burgundy Wine Director

This long-established family domaine impresses us more and more with every vintage. The Pinsons have always picked by hand and they are now using natural yeasts for the vinification process. Most wines are vinified in stainless steel, with a small percentage in barrel for the top wines, then matured in barrel for up to a year. The only bad news in 2012 is the quantity: 20% down for straight Chablis, 25-30% less across the Premier Cru vineyards and minus 50% on the Grand Cru which was affected by frost.

Again the old vines have delivered something special. This is perhaps the most exuberant of all the Billaud-Simon wines, yet the great weight of fruit is balanced by a steely, mineral core. Sumptuous, succulent and immensely satisfying. Drink 2012-2018.

A brooding and serious nose gives little away at this early stage, but the palate offers an explosion of dense, ripe apricot and peach fruit, intertwined with spicy, warming oak and piercing acidity that ties the whole thing together. The finish alternates between waves of acidity and sucrosity. Weighty and textural, but still a baby. Drink 2023-2033.

It’s mixed news this year: while 2017 sees the return of the much-loved Cuvée Mademoiselle, overall there is less wine than in 2016, frost damage having cut the crop by anything up to 70 percent, with the worst-affected area being Les Clos. Despite the obvious disappointment of the small crop, Laurent and Charlène were delighted with the quality and health of the grapes at harvest, and feel this is a classically Chablisien vintage.

Where the Mont de Milieu is about power, Pinson’s Les Clos is the epitome of finesse, albeit every bit as intense. The fruit has a serene quality to it, fills out the middle palate, then continues to an immensely long finish. This is a fabulously complete wine and a bargain at that!
(Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Director)

Laurent Pinson thinks 2010 will be the longest lasting in the recent succession of successful vintages in Chablis, combining the intensity of 2009 with the invigorating acidity of the previous year. Though volume is down as for everybody, prices remain stable – meaning that this excellent address offers superb value. The Premier and Grand Cru wines are a blend of barrel and stainless steel maturation, though the wood component never dominates the wine.

As ever, this wine is the most backward in its youth. There is a touch of wood on the nose but the fruit dominates. It is very tightly wound; a grand classic for the long term, but hard to pick out the details yet. Massive concentration, and potentially very enchanting.
Jasper Morris MW - Burgundy Wine Director

Benoît Droin is the 14th generation of the family producing wine in Chablis, looking after a 25-hectare domaine with an impressive range of Premier and Grand Cru vineyards. Overall Benoît’s crop was down 15%, largely in straight Chablis after frost, and in the early ripening plots which suffered from drought. The wines are very backward this year as the prolonged cold spring inhibited the malolactic fermentation. However, it is very clear that these are wines of great concentration and real potential.

Fèvre owns a sixth of the vines in Les Clos, mostly towards the top of the vineyard. The nose is incredibly complex with lots of oyster shell, iodine and citrus fruit. The palate is fine and precise, with an underlying concentration. There is a huge amount in reserve here, and this will require patience. Drink 2025-2037.

Didier has mixed emotions about the 2017 vintage; the quality is excellent, but thanks to the frost at the end of April, volumes are low, with their substantial holdings on the rive droite (right bank) particularly suffering. Up to 60 percent of the crop was lost in the Grands Crus, particularly Les Clos. Didier explained that, in comparison to 2016, the season post-frost was relatively simple, with warm, dry conditions and rain falling when required. He describes 2017 as a very classic vintage which offers acidity, freshness and tension.

Another quite exceptional wine from this great Grand Cru vineyard. The fruit notes include pears at their perfect moment of ripeness. The wine is dreamily well balanced with mazing energy behind. A magical, complete Chablis for the long term.
(Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Buyer)