2014 Chablis Vaillons 1er Cru

Bernard Raveneau’s daughter Isabelle, who went to winemaking school in Beaune after spending a decade on the commercial/marketing side of wine, has been responsible for making the family’s wines since 2010 and Bernard has technically retired as of the beginning of this year. Isabelle told me that the estate took a direct hit from the pre-harvest hailstorm in 2015, making just one-third to one-half their normal volume in Vaillons, Clos, Blanchots and Montée de Tonnerre. The family began picking the affected parcels on September 3, she told me, adding that although acidity levels were low, based on sugar levels the grapes were almost ready to harvest, and everything except their village parcels was picked at 13% potential alcohol or higher. The harvest was finished in eight days. None of the Raveneau 2015s were chaptalized or acidified. The wines finished their alcoholic and malolactic fermentations quickly—before Christmas—but Isabelle noted that a few wines were allowed to keep some of their malic acidity.

The Raveneaus are normally in the middle of bottling when I visit at the beginning of June, but the 2014s had all been finished in mid-May. Isabelle Raveneau told me that the superb 2014s “are a lot like the 2010s, with great drinkability.” Both vintages, she went on, are richer and deeper than the 2008s. (Incidentally, my notes on the 2014s represent my first tasting of these wines in finished form; last year, I accidentally applied precise scores to these wines rather than projected ranges.)

The Raveneaus bottled their 2013s a bit earlier than usual, in early April of this year, "because the wines needed it," said Bernard Raveneau, who does not believe that 2013 will be a vintage for long aging. Although he noted that the estate's Butteaux, Montmain, Montée de Tonnerre and Valmur were harvested before the weekend of rain in early October, and that the Blanchots and Clos came in on the first morning of the rain, he did a longer-than-usual débourbage and also fined the must. I had the feeling that I like these wines more than Bernard does; they are certainly ripe enough, with potential alcohol levels ranging from 12.9% to 13.5%. Grape sugars were actually a tad lower in 2014, but the wines' aromatics are clearly more complex than those of the '13s.