2016 Chablis Valmur Grand Cru

One of my favourite “tweets” of the year is when I can type: “It’s Raven’eau clock”. Given its worldwide renown, it is a discrete domaine that you could easily walk past if you do not spot the signage above your head. As usual I met with Isabelle Raveneau, who is always one of the most refreshingly candid winemakers in town. She takes the responsibility of managing Chablis’ most famous address seriously, but her down-to-earth sensibility and wry humour means that she keeps everything in proportion. The only matter that she finds irksome, rightly so in my opinion, is the astronomical prices the domaine’s wines fetch on the secondary market. She escorted me through the 2016s in bottle and 2017s out of barrel, the former having been bottled a week prior to my ringing their doorbell.

“Like everyone, we had frost damage in 2017. It lasted about a week. Temperatures were low, and the humidity made it worse. If it is just one or two nights then it doesn’t do too much damage. It was problematic in the Grand Crus and in Montée de Tonnerre, basically everything on the Right Bank – different areas to 2016. For example, in 2017 Valmur was badly damaged, but in 2016, not at all. The 2016 was more like a winter frost and 2017 more like a spring frost. We installed candles in Les Clos and apart from that we just prayed. We don’t have any vineyard with spray protection. Except in Les Clos nobody is protecting with candles – you need to have enough people doing that [for it to be effective]. The Left Bank was normal in terms of yield and damage. We picked early, starting on Tuesday 5 September and finished the following Monday, over seven days, normal for our domaine. In 2017 we have lost around one-third whereas in 2016 we lost around half the crop.”

“In 2016 we had high mildew pressure with some botrytis. It was complicated. The 2017 is a small yield but the growing season was smooth: rain when we needed some and then sunshine. The only bad thing was the spring frost. Even the flowering went well for parcels not damaged by the frost, the fermentation nice and easy. There was more heat in the cellar, so the malolactic fermentation finished before Christmas, which is not always the case.

Like Isabelle, I find more enjoyment locked inside those gestating 2017s than in 2016. That is not to say that 2016 is not without its gems, for example a brilliant La Fôret and a scintillating Montée de Tonnerre. Yet the 2017s appear to have greater vivacity and tension, perhaps more terroir expression with killer offerings from (again) Montée de Tonnerre and Vaillons, a stunning Blanchots and a Les Clos that will vie for wine of the vintage.

“The 2016 vintage was complicated from beginning to end, but we're very happy with the wines despite all the problems with the season,” said winemaker Isabelle Raveneau in early June. “We had hail, frost, mildew, rain and drought,” she went on. “We started harvesting on September 28 because the fruit wasn’t ripe enough until then. We didn’t really see rot but our crop was down 40%.” Owing to the small crop, potential alcohol levels were 13% or higher (“but it wasn’t a ‘cold’ maturity as in 2014,” noted Raveneau) and she did not chaptalize. Both the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations were difficult, according to Isabelle, lasting until February (they’re usually finished by the end of December). She racked the wines off their lees quickly after the malos “because they already had enough fat.” Acidity levels were low in 2016, as in 2015, and Raveneau views these two years as vintages for mid-term aging.

The Raveneaus are almost invariably in the process of bottling when I visit Chablis in early June. This year, Isabelle was reluctant to show the '15s that had been bottled during the week before I stopped by, so I was only able to taste the three '15s that were slated to be bottled a few days after my visit. I have included a new set of notes, even though I reported on these wines last year.