Chablis Gets the Côte de Beaune Treatment from Mother Nature 

During the first half of this decade, growers in Chablis enjoyed better luck with the weather than did their colleagues on the Côte de Beaune. But, for many, their lucky streak ran out in 2015, when a very promising and precocious crop of grapes was pounded by a hailstorm just days before the harvest was set to start. That weather event was just a taste of what was to come in 2016, when the worst spring frost in decades, followed by two widespread and extremely damaging hailstorms in May, reduced much of the region to a non-smoking ruin. Only the Grand Cru slope and some right bank premier cru vineyards at the center of the Chablis appellation escaped relatively unscathed; elsewhere, there was pain aplenty for nearly everyone, with some producers predicting that their 2016 production would be cut by 60% to 70%--or more. And that was weeks before the flowering even began!

2016 hail damage to the horizon

Because the buds that will become next year’s crop originate during this year’s flowering, production in 2017 is also likely to be significantly affected. This is not good news for future Chablis availability or pricing.

My annual tour of the Chablis vignoble in early June took place under cool, overcast conditions, with the producers just beginning to come to grips with the disastrous spring of 2016. Growers were facing a busy summer of work in the vines, with the likelihood of relatively little payoff at the end. Where the vineyards are normally a sea of green at the beginning of June, large swaths of Chablis were stripped virtually bare of their vegetation. But it was the 2015s and 2014s that I was in the region to taste.

A Favorable Start to the 2015 Season, then a Hot, Dry Summer 

Following a warmer than average March, an exceptionally warm April and a moderate May, the flowering took place early and in a rush under warm, sunny conditions during the first half of June, with a hot period on June 4, 5 and 6 (I was there, sweating) getting things off to an explosive start. The stage was set for a copious crop of evenly ripe grapes. 

June continued much warmer than average, with a sharp and prolonged heat spike during the last few days of the month and first week of July causing sunburn in some of the most exposed sites. There was another, shorter heat spike in the middle of July and temperatures for the month were again higher than normal. August remained very warm, with several more short jolts of heat, particularly one at the end of the month. But it’s important to note that, compared to the Côte d’Or, the high summer temperatures in Chablis were somewhat less extreme compared to the long-term average, and the Chablis region had a bit more beneficial rain in June, July and August than the Côte d’Or (and especially the Mâconnais and Beaujolais).

Riches await in Vincent Dauvissat's cellar

But in Chablis, the end-of-August heat wave was broken in spectacular fashion by the storm on the night of August 31/September 1. The hail began in Préhy and Courgis, moved up to the Valvan valley, brushing much of the greater Vaillons hillside as well as Montmains, and then did its most severe and highest-visibility damage to vineyards in the Grand Crus Clos and Blanchots and the super-Premier Cru Montée de Tonnerre. The storm marked the end of summer: virtually overnight, the thermometer plummeted from the 90s to the low 70s, and temperatures remained pleasantly cool through the harvest and beyond. The week of September 14 turned dull and showery but by then the harvest was virtually over.