Wines of Chablis Not Too Shabby

By Alex Russell on March 9, 2012 in Food

Some of the better French wines I’ve been drinking recently are the wines of Chablis. If you want a great wine to go with all the seafood you’re probably eating at this time of year, they are hard to beat.

Chablis is the most northern part of Burgundy, meaning it’s quite a cool climate, though it’s not quite as far north as Champagne. The vines in Chablis are almost exclusively Chardonnay. Now I know a lot of you aren’t Chardonnay drinkers, but hear me out. Everyone knows about those huge buttery Chardonnays that turn many people off and while a lot of the Chardonnays that come out of Burgundy (e.g. from the Montrachet vineyards) are known for their high alcohol levels and rich, deeply concentrated flavours, the wines of Chablis are very different.

Chablis is all about fruit purity, and not so much what the winemaker has done. In fact, the winemaker is pretty limited in what they can do. By law, the grapes must be picked so that they have certain potential alcohol levels. Many producers don’t use oak at all, which keeps the costs down and also prevents the elegant flavours from the grapes being overshadowed. Some producers do use older oak barrels (which impart less vanilla flavour than new ones) but usually only for the top two levels of wine. Most producers handpick their grapes too.

The four levels of Chablis are, in order from most prestigious to least prestigious, Grand Cru, Premier Cru, Chablis and Petit Chablis.

There are seven Grand Cru areas (and one unofficial one, just to keep you guessing). The subtle differences in terroir (climate and general growing conditions) between each of these Grand Cru areas imparts different flavours on the wines, so you’ll usually see the vineyard named on the label (e.g. Grenouilles).

Generally, these wines are hard to find (they account for about 3% of Chablis production) and will cost you around the $100 mark, or even up to $150 or more depending on demand. But having grapes from a Grand Cru vineyard is not enough to ensure that you can call your wine a Grand Cru. The wines must pass a special panel, which tastes the wines blind to ensure they are good enough.

Grand Cru wines tend to have more complex flavours and a touch more alcohol than Premier Cru wines.

The second level, Premier Cru, is a bit more difficult. Until recently there were forty Premier Cru vineyards. Depending on the producer, you may not even see the vineyard named, as in some cases producers using grapes from nearby non-Premier Cru vineyards are allowed to use the Premier Cru vineyard name, despite not being a Premier Cru level wine. Confusing? You betcha!

A personal favourite of mine is the William Fevre Premier Cru Vaillons. It’ll set you back about $70 a bottle but it’s rich and elegant. I took it to a blind tasting recently and it was picked as the favourite white. It even appealed to the Sauv Blanc and Pinot Grigio drinkers, who were shocked when I told them it was made from Chardonnay.

The Chablis level wines are usually around $40-60 and are great value, as are the Petit Chablis wines at around $25-40.

Being very pure wines they’re dependent on the vintage conditions. Cooler vintages mean more crisp, elegant wines (e.g. 2007), while warmer climates mean more broad flavours. Both are lovely, but to me the cooler years produce much more interesting wines. They are great young, but give them some age (say a decade) and you’ll see a complex beast emerge from hibernation. For the record, a lot of producers are calling the 2008 one of the best vintages in two or three decades for Chablis, so buy up big.