2003 Chablis

.Sebastien Dauvissat described 2004 as a huge crop with a lot of oidium (he didn't even bother to pick the grapes in his most affected vines in Vaillons).He harvested at the beginning of October and believes he has made very well balanced wines with sound acidity, similar in style to the 2002s.Dauvissat bottled most of his 2003s in May of this year, but still had his old-vines Vaillons and Les Preuses in tank at the beginning of June.Dauvissat told me he did a bit of additional acidification after the malos in 2003 "by taste and by good conscience.The wines have strong material and can support it.I wanted to give them more of a chance to age."Dauvissat advised waiting at least five years before drinking his 2003 crus, and noted that the estate's 1947 Vaillons is still fresh.Indeed, most of Dauvissat's 2003s struck me as particularly impressive in the way they avoid exotic, overripe notes.Interestingly, Dauvissat maintained that the estate's practice of harvesting by machine worked to advantage in 2003.He could pick quickly without getting surmaturite, he told me, and the machine did not take many of the grilled, hard grapes.

Sebastian Dauvissat, now on his own at this domaine following the recent death of his father, told me that grape sugars in 2003 were in the 10.5% to 11% range, or lower than in 2002, and that the estate's various cuvees were routinely chaptalized.Tartaric acidity was added to the musts, but no further adjustments have been made since the vinifications. Interestingly, Dauvissat told me that the extreme heat of 2003 saved his wines. If the sugars had been higher, we would have made wines that would evolve too quickly."Dauvissat added that the 2002s possess more material than the estate's 2000s, which he feels are more minerally today and are also in the process of closing down.The 2003s had been racked in January.(Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Shekomeko NY