2020 Chablis Vieilles Vignes

I headed off to the tiny village of Chichée, just outside Chablis ville, where Didier Picq greeted me at his small winery, which is simplicity itself: a winemaker with his stainless steel vats, crafting what you might consider to be “traditional” Chablis, unadulterated by wood, often malic and with distinct salinity. “The 2020 was a very good harvest,” Picq told me. “I cropped at around 50–52hl/ha from August 28 until September 5. The wines are well balanced, with the tension of 2017, and they have regular alcohol levels. The 2020 will be racked the first week of March.” I asked him about global warming and how it is affecting Chablis, not least because his style of wine depends on a cool climate. “The vines are adapting to the warmth,” he replied. “The 2019 vintage is not like the 2003. The pH in 2020 is 3.30 with 12.5° to 13.0° alcohol. It just means that there is a small window for picking. In 2019 it was only a week long. The 2019s were bottled in May 2021.” I adore Picq’s nascent 2020s, crowned by a stunning Chablis Vaucoupin that revels in its tension and salinity, closely followed by his never-to-be-underestimated, quite tangy Chablis En Vaudécorse. Re-tasting the 2019s from bottle, I find the vintage on par with 2020, and both superior to his 2018s, which lacked a bit of nervosité due to the growing season.