2011 Chablis Les Clos Grand Cru

Vincent Dauvissat's 2012s are going to be harder to find than normal. Hail and long, protracted flowering took with them big chunks of the estate's production. Yields are down 40% in Preuses and 30% in Clos, both utterly heartbreaking, to say the least. Dauvissat compares 2012 to 2010 stylistically, but with more richness and more acidity. The harvest started on September 21, nearly three weeks later than 2011. I expect the 2012s will require cellaring, but in the meantime, readers will find plenty of early appeal in the 2011s. Dauvissat describes 2011 as a vintage with lower acidity and lower sugars than 2011, but adds he thinks it will be regarded as a classic vintage, with wines that will drink well throughout their entire lives. In 2011 the malos were done by Christmas, the fastest ever at the domaine, and something Dauvissat had never seen before.

Vincent Dauvissat likes the 2012s for their sheer drinkability and charm."They're less tight than the 2010s were, and the grapes didn't have the same exotic element of passerillage in 2012," he told me.But Dauvissat was concerned that fermentative aromas were blocking the minerality of some of his wines in early June (the later-than-normal malolactic fermentations finished by the end of February).Dauvissat began harvesting on September 21, with grape sugars between 12.5% and 13%.He did not chaptalize his 2012s.

Vincent Dauvissat brought in his 2011s beginning on September 1st. Dauvissat likes the vintage to 2009, but with a little more verve. For the first time malos were done by Christmas, which Dauvissat attributes to the precocious personality of the vintage. I tasted all of the 2011s from barrel, where they were aging on their fine lees after having been racked once. Dauvissat talks about the 2010 harvest as having two components. The fruit he brought in early had notable maturity and considerable concentration because of the tiny yields, while the fruit he brought in after the September rain had a little bit better overall balance, which is to say alcohols around 12.5 and acidities around 6-7%, versus 13.5% and 7.5%, alcohol and acidity respectively, for the fruit brought in early. As a comparison, overall acidities for the 2011s were around 4%, which is to say significantly lower than 2010. Dauvissat told me his father planted the family's vineyards with rootstocks that encourage early maturity, and that is a key in understanding many vintages, including 2010, when an irregular flowering lowered yields dramatically. In 2010 the earlier flowering parcels got the worst of the bad weather, while the parcels that flower later did better as the weather turned warmer and more stable at the most critical time. Overall yields were down approximately 40%, while Sechets and Vaillons were also hit by frost.

While most of the Chablis growers I visit don't use their small oak barrels for more than ten years, which already is a lot longer than their colleagues on the Cote de Beaune do, Vincent Dauvissat has a cellar full of antiques.(The original section of his cellar dates back to the 16th century.)He showed me a barrel in its 52nd year (he has ancient feuillettes as well as futs), and I tasted a superb sample of his 2011 Les Preuses out of a 1981 barrel."You can smell all the past crus and vintages in them," he told me, in a Raiders of the Lost Ark moment.These receptacles, of course, are as close to neutral as oak barrels can be.Dauvissat began picking on September 1 in 2011 and his finished wines will be in the low 12% to 12.5% alcohol range.He described acidity levels as "lowish" but did not chaptalize or acidify."I prefer to let the terroir speak," he summarized.As usual, his wines will be among the stars of the vintage. (Vineyard Brands, www.vineyardbrands.com; wines bottled under the Dauvissat-Camus label are imported by Classic Wine Imports, www.classicwineimports.com)