&nbsp;Dauvissat Chablis Les Clos: 1983-2015

BY STEPHEN TANZER | NOVEMBER 26, 2019

Here’s a riddle: Who doesn’t
travel much but is virtually never at home? One obvious answer would be Vincent
Dauvissat, who is at his most content working in his vineyards and letting the
world come to his cellar. For nearly 20 years, I routinely scheduled my annual
early-June visit to Dauvissat at 6:00 in the evening, at his request, and if I
happened to arrive early, it was a good bet that Dauvissat would not be there
yet. Sure enough, he would soon pull into his driveway, back from a full
afternoon in the vines, and after quickly washing his hands, changing his
clothes and grabbing a jacket he would lead me down the steep flight of slick
stone steps into his cellar of delights.

Like his cousins the
Raveneaus around the corner in the village of Chablis, Dauvissat is a classic
traditionalist who’s happy to let his wines speak for themselves. And like the
Raveneaus’ wines, Dauvissat’s wines are utterly essential items on the wine
lists of France’s three-star restaurants, as in many, many other restaurants
around the wine-drinking world, so finding more than the odd bottle or three in
the retail marketplace can be a challenge.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1574797539503-Dauvissat%27s+mid-slope+holdings+on+deep+marl+soil+.jpg"> Dauvissat's mid-slope holdings on deep marl soil

Not To Belabor the Obvious but . . .

You may note that my scores
in this article, on average, are a bit higher for Dauvissat’s Les Clos than for
the vintages of Raveneau’s Montée de Tonnerre that were included in my <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/domaine-raveneau-chablis-montee-de-tonnerre-1985-2015-aug-2019">vertical
tasting</a> published on Vinous in August. (I tasted both sets of wines on the
same day this past spring at the estates.) That’s entirely as it should be, as
we’re comparing the top grand cru of Chablis to its finest premier cru. I would
love someday to taste a dozen or more vintages of Les Clos from Dauvissat and
Raveneau côte à côte. The next best
face-off would be Raveneau’s splendid Montée de Tonnerre alongside Dauvissat’s
top premier cru, his remarkably rich and nuanced La Forest. Both of these premier
cru bottlings could be described as their respective estates’ flagship wines in
terms of the size of their vineyard holdings and annual production.&nbsp;

For old-timers, choosing
between Dauvissat and Raveneau is analogous to the eternal Mantle-or-Mays
debate (I’m dating myself) in which neither side is wrong. In any given year,
either or both estates can make stunningly complex and ageworthy Chablis that transcends
Chardonnay, and in most vintages they both do. Both have been family-run domaines
since they were established, and both own a number of superb sites.
(Dauvissat’s other grand cru, Les Preuses, is, according to my notes, the
finest example made from this vineyard.) And at both estates, the next
generation is in the process of taking up the reins.

<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1574797499385-From+cellar+to+kitchen-+a+Dauvissat+Chablis+Les+Clos+extravaganza.jpg"> From cellar to kitchen - a Dauvissat Chablis Les Clos vertical back to 1983 Four Generations of Dauvissats

Vincent Dauvissat’s grandfather Robert
was a vigneron in Chablis during the
1920s and he bottled his own wine for the first time from vintage 1931 (he was
one of the first domain bottlers in Chablis). Robert began with just 70 ares of La Forest and 30 ares of Clos—in other words, just a
single hectare of vines.

But the estate’s lofty reputation was
established by Robert’s son René, who in 1950 purchased the house in the
village where Vincent still lives today, largely because it came with spacious
cellars dating back to the 17th century. René and his wife Madeleine
were responsible for expanding the family domaine through the purchase and
rental of numerous parcels of vines in Les Clos, Les Preuses, La Forest (more
commonly spelled Forêts or Les Forêts) and Séchet, as well as some
then-marginal village land. Vincent, for his part, is the owner of vines in
Vaillons and an additional parcel of Clos. Today the domain consists of 12.7
hectares of vines.

Vincent effectively started vinifying in 1976, at the
age of 19, but had worked with his father for several years before that, during
his school vacations. He joined the domaine officially full-time in 1979 and
his father retired in 1989 (René is still with us, at the age of 92). In recent
years, Vincent has been joined at the family estate by his son Ghislain and
daughter Etiennette, both of whom have been officially full-time since 2013.
Ghislain spends the bulk of his time in the vines, while Etiennette largely
takes care of administration and the preparation of orders. “But they can be
multi-functional,” says Vincent, and the three of them vinify together, he told
me, “sur
la même longueur d'onde” (i.e., on the same
wavelength).

Vincent, incidentally, will technically retire at the
beginning of 2020, but it’s hard to imagine that he will be any less present in
the vineyards and winery for the foreseeable future. So let’s not panic!<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1574797521991-Dauvissat%27s+vines+on+chalk-rich+marl+near+the+top+of+Les+Clos.jpg"> Dauvissat's vines on chalk-rich marl near the top of Les Clos 

Dauvissat’s Holdings
in Les Clos

Les Clos is both the largest
and the best grand cru of Chablis. As its name suggests, it was once surrounded
by a wall but, as anyone who has personally viewed this steep, well-drained
hillside knows, it’s no longer a clos.
Its roughly 28 hectares are today shared by 28 owners, but, including négociant bottlings, there are two or
three times as many examples of Les Clos on the market every year. This
essentially south/southwest-facing hillside, the easternmost except for Les
Blanchots of the seven grand cru us of Chablis (eight, if you include Albert
Bichot’s six-hectare monopole La
Moutonne, which straddles Vaudésir and Les Preuses), is perhaps the quintessential manifestation of Kimmeridgian
marl: rocky soil with high levels of limestone and clay. It’s also a grand cru
that can be compared with the greatest white wine sites on the Côte de Beaune,
though happily it’s normally far less expensive, at least at the cellar door.
Still, prices for Les Clos from the best growers have risen sharply in recent
years.

Dauvissat’s hectare of vines
in Les Clos is spread across multiple parcels in the middle and upper reaches
of the slope. The average age of vines is about 55 years, including many that
Dauvissat describes as “tiring,” and there are no young vines at the moment, although
Dauvissat recently pulled up a parcel for replanting in another five or six
years. Dauvissat has some vines on white marl soil (essentially calcareous clay-based
soil) high up on the hillside and others
on deeper marl in the middle of the slope. Another parcel, which Dauvissat
describes as easier to work, features darker soil with a higher clay content
and some underground moisture. It’s very humid in the winter in this parcel, he
noted, and thus it’s more vulnerable to spring frost, but the coldest nights
can also affect vines higher up the hill, as they have more than once in recent
years. Dauvissat does only a single vinification of his Clos, though, as
there’s never more than a day or two between picks, and the vines usually ripen
equally.

The soil in Les Clos yields
wines with density and fullness, but the marl also brings powerful minerality
and finishing firmness to the wines, especially where the soil features a high calcium
carbonate content in the clay. Through the years, successful bottlings of Clos
have struck me as combining the best traits of Montrachet and
Corton-Charlemagne. That’s high praise, I know, but hardly an exaggeration—at
least when it comes to wines from the finest estates. In the context of other Chablis
crus, Les Clos delivers an unmatched combination of aromatic complexity, power,
depth, mineral cut and longevity and is particularly slow to reveal its full
personality.

Classic Clos, says Dauvissat,
typically displays a sweet spice character, including notes of vanilla,
cinnamon and juniper. With age, he adds, almond often comes out, and the wines
can take on a frangipane aspect. My own experience is that Dauvissat’s Clos can
show remarkably similar aromatics from vintage to vintage, particularly as the
wines approach maturity—a function of the strength of the terroir.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1574797475060-Nothing+but+oak+in+Vincent+Dauvissat%27s+cellar.jpg"> Nothing but oak in Vincent Dauvissat's cellar

Hands On in the Vineyards and Hands Off in the Cellar&nbsp;

One key to the consistently high quality
of Dauvissat’s wines is his relatively low yields by Chablis standards—usually
no higher than 50 hectoliters per hectare for his grand crus and a bit more for
his premier crus, village wine and Petit Chablis. He accomplishes this almost
entirely via strict pruning and ébourgeonnage
following the bud break. In fact, Dauvissat told me that he’s not specifically
seeking to limit yields in Les Clos or his other parcels. Rather, he’s attempting
to preserve “a certain equilibrium so that the plants function well and are
able to bring their grapes to maturity.” And he emphasized that his yields have
generally been lower over the last ten years, not due to any particular steps
he has taken in the vines but to climatic conditions.

Dauvissat also told me that
he’s looking for ripeness more than for acid structure, and that he considers
it important to keep the grape clusters aerated. He makes very sparing use of
vineyard treatments and has farmed his vines biodynamically since 2002 but has never
sought official certification. Dauvissat, who picks entirely by hand,
emphasizes that there is no rule for when he brings in his Clos. “We begin the
harvest when it seems good to us, according to our personal criteria for each
parcel,” he explained. “There’s no rule as to order. Sometimes we start our
harvest with Les Clos, but there are also years when we finish with it.”

Dauvissat presses whole clusters and
carries out a débourbage lasting
about 12 hours. The fermentation takes place mostly in steel vats, plus a small
quantity of new barrels. In years when the grape skins are healthy, the natural
yeasts start fermenting fairly quickly and the primary fermentation typically lasts
between 15 and 21 days. But Dauvissat does not hesitate to add neutral yeasts to
get the fermentations started in years in which the grape skins have been
damaged by rot, pointing out that “the force of the terroir is stronger than that of the yeasts.”&nbsp;

The wines then go into barrels for
anywhere from 8 to 18 months, with the Clos getting about 20% new oak and most
of his other wines a bit less. But he also makes extensive use of older
barrels—the oldest barrique in his
cellar is almost 40 years of age! I can’t say for sure as I don’t live in the
cellars, but it appears that Dauvissat frequently uses a smidge more new oak
than Raveneau; for sure he considers oak aging a critical tool for allowing his
wines to breathe during their élevage.
He believes that without the softening effect of oak, Chablis would be too
austere. But there are no rules here: Dauvissat used a bit less new oak in 2015
and purchased no new barrels at all in 2016 or 2017 because of very low crop
levels owing to damaging spring frost (and to spring hailstorms in ’16). 

Dauvissat does not chill or filter his wines
to eliminate tartrate crystals; rather, he simply relies on the chilly ambient winter
temperature in his barrel cellars to do this. The malolactic fermentations
typically take place between January and March, but may be later or even a bit
earlier. Like his father before him, Dauvissat does not believe in lees
stirring. Bottling takes place with relative low levels of sulfur: normally 20
parts per million free and 65 to 70 total.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1574797577269-Down+the+stone+steps%2C+riches+await.jpg"> Down the stone steps, riches await in the cellar 

Some Brief Comments on the Tasting&nbsp;

Our vertical tasting began
with the stunning 2015 Les Clos, a wine that Dauvissat picked right after the
hailstorm that struck Chablis just before the anticipated start to the harvest;
my impression is that the 2015 will probably need another decade in bottle to
approach its peak. In fact, the first wine we tasted that struck me as ready to
enjoy now (but still capable of many years of evolution in bottle) was the
2009. All the wines we sampled were in fine form, although the rich, complex 1999
was a bit more evolved than I would have anticipated (still, it’s now 20 years
old!) and there was some bottle variation with the 2004. Dauvissat singled out 2014,
2010, 2003 and 2002 as vintages that should be particularly long agers. And
then of course there was the 1996, which he described as “the monster—and a bit of a special case.” I would
also predict that the 2012 and 2008 bottlings of Les Clos will be long-lived.

Yes, the even-numbered years
stood out in our tasting, but equally impressive was how nervy the riper, larger-scaled
vintages could be. Some Chablis purists have expressed the opinion that grand
crus, especially from the warmer vintages, can be less steely and “typical”
than premier crus, but even the higher-alcohol vintages in our tasting
displayed definition and vibrancy. And in any case these wines have their
powerful minerality to fall back on for structure and longevity. Perhaps the
closest analog on the Côte
de Beaune might be Meursault Perrières, or even Chevalier-Montrachet, both of which
in the warmest years can be supple and deceptively approachable early on due to
lowish acidity but have their sturdy mineral underpinning to fall back on. And of
course the Dauvissat wines enjoy the natural advantage of higher acidity even
in the ripest years, owing to the more northerly climate of Chablis.

Thanks in part to global
warming—as well as to Dauvissat’s stated objective of harvesting for ripeness
more than for acidity—most of these wines were seriously ripe and tactile, even
if they were tightly coiled in their youth. In at least a few vintages,
Dauvissat picked his Clos just short of surmaturité
or even noble rot, and the combination of fully ripe fruit and the controlled
oxidation of barrel aging can give them considerable early palate presence. But
even if they’re not painfully austere in the early going, they maintain
outstanding grip and stony dryness 10 or 15 years later, once they’ve had a
chance to absorb some of their baby fat.

For his part, Dauvissat
believes that, at least until now, the powerful terroir character of the better Chablis sites has been strong
enough to withstand global warming. “Of course we see that the vines tend to
flower earlier, and then we have to pick the grapes earlier—a good ten days
earlier than we did in the 1980s,” he explained. “But the Chablis terroir is so strong that I have no
concerns about the quality or typicity of our wines.”<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/wines?sort%5Bdirection%5D=desc&amp;sort%5Bname%5D=vintage&amp;wf_dirty=false&amp;wf_export_fields=&amp;wf_export_format=&amp;wf_id=&amp;wf_match=all&amp;wf_model=Wine&amp;wf_name=&amp;wf_order=vintage&amp;wf_order_type=desc&amp;wf_page=1&amp;wf_per_page=25&amp;wf_submitted=true&amp;wf_type=WillFilter%3A%3AFilter&amp;wine_filter%5Barticle_id%5D=2437">See the Wines from Youngest to Oldest</a><hr><a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/2019-burgundy-verticals-jan-2019">Read more about Stephen Tanzer's 2019 Burgundy verticals</a>You Might Also Enjoy<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/domaine-marquis-d-angerville-s-volnay-clos-des-ducs-1er-cru-1920-2017-oct-2019">Domaine Marquis d’Angerville’s Volnay Clos des Ducs 1er Cru: 1920 - 2017</a>, Stephen Tanzer, October 2019 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/domaine-georges-mugneret-gibourg-s-clos-vougeot-1984-2015-oct-2019">Domaine Georges Mugneret-Gibourg’s Clos Vougeot 1984-2015</a>, Stephen Tanzer, October 2019 <a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/domaine-leflaive-chevalier-montrachet-1981-2012-sep-2019">Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet: 1981-2012</a>, Stephen Tanzer, September 2019 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.vinous.com/articles/domaine-raveneau-chablis-montee-de-tonnerre-1985-2015-aug-2019">Domaine Raveneau Chablis Montée de Tonnerre: 1985-2015</a>, Stephen Tanzer, August 2019 <a target="_blank" href="https://www.vinous.com/articles/domaine-trapet-chambertin-1949-2012-may-2019">Domaine Trapet Chambertin: 1949-2012</a>, Stephen Tanzer, May 2019

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