2023 Chablis Les Butteaux 1er Cru

This was a pivotal year tasting at Eleni and Edouard Vocoret’s winery, just a minute’s walk down from Raveneau. I remember tasting one of their earliest vintages in a makeshift start-out facility, renting space from Edouard’s family. It was very basic, but you could tell that the husband-and-wife team had convictions about how to make wine, with far less intervention than his ancestors. They have always farmed a small number of cuvées, none from what you might call the crown jewels of Chablis. They just had to be patient because Vocoret’s family promised to hand over some of their holdings, which can be a complicated process. This has come to pass, and it marks the first tasting with a greatly expanded number of wines, 11 in total, including prestigious Premier and Grand Crus. For precise details, readers should refer to individual tasting notes where I include information, but essentially, they now work 7.89 hectares instead of 4.78. Therefore, they hired two more people in the vineyards, each person responsible for 1.2 hectares. The headline is perhaps the addition of three Grand Crus: Les Clos, Valmur and Blanchot, that will obviously follow the same tenets applied to their entire holdings. This makes Vocoret a significant player in the top echelon of Chablis wine producers.

Back to the matter in hand and the 2023 vintage I tasted in barrel. I asked whether yields were higher than average because of the even flowering. “In fact, we had a normal harvest because of the mildew,” he replied. “In the end, we made what you might call ‘correct’ quantities, which enhanced quality. We started picking on September 9. Everything goes through 18 months of élevage with the last three months in tank. There is much to admire in their roster of 2023s, particularly their Montée de Tonnerre and, predictably, Les Clos. There is an openness that I really appreciate, which you might describe as “honesty” in their wines, which is reflective of their approach in the vineyard. There’s no adulteration. Their journey over the next decade will be fascinating to follow.