2003 Chablis Les Preuses Grand Cru

Vincent Dauvissat was out in the vines when I dropped in at the winery. The prevailing hot and humid conditions meant that mildew pressure was high. So, his daughter Etiennette, who now works alongside her father, guided me through their full range of 2022s. “We cropped at 45 to 48hL/ha with some parcels up to 60hL/ha,” she explains. “We picked from around September 3. It was very precocious with just a bit of stress on the younger vines.” One comes to expect Chablis from the top drawer from this address, and the 2022s will not disappoint, even though they demand a requisite decade in bottle before they really show their mettle, plus a long decanting if possible (as proven by a 2003 Les Clos that Dauvissat had been opened four days earlier that was singing.) In the tussle between the Grand Crus, I lean towards their Les Preuses over Les Clos this year.

.Vincent Dauvissat compares 2004 to vintage 2000.The crop level was high in 2004, and acid levels, according to Dauvissat, are quite healthy in the post-malolactic wines.He harvested beginning on October 1 with grape sugars that ranged from 11.8% to 13.2%, and did just a bit of chaptalization-on the order of half a degree-for the lesser wines. Dauvissat told me that the typical 2.8 grams per liter acidity in his 2003s is the lowest ever at this estate.Still, the rain that fell on September 27 stimulated the vines, bringing a rise in acid levels and also enabling him to harvest fruit with natural alcohol between 12.5% and 13.5%.He acidified his earliest two cuvees, then stopped.Incidentally, Dauvissat continues to make extensive use of the traditional 132-liter feuillettes to age his premier crus (but not his grand crus).Historically, he told me, certain terroirs were always felt to need a lot of controlled oxidation in barrel after the alcoholic fermentation.And in the old days, these smaller containers made it easier to ship a barrel to Paris to be bottled.(Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; the Dauvissat-Camus label is imported by Classic Wine Imports, Brookline, MA)

As in recent years, I saved one of my favorite Chablis producers for last and was not disappointed.Vincent Dauvissat, a reliable judge of vintage quality, told me that 2003 was a small crop without much of an acid structure.Still, he noted, the wines will need to age in order to show their inherent minerality, and he was confident that they possess the material to reward patience.Grape sugars were in the high 12.5% to 13.2% range, according to Dauvissat, so no chaptalization was done.Dauvissat lightly acidified only the fruit he brought in during the first two days of the harvest (September 1 and 2), then stopped adding tartaric acidity to subsequent lots, with the exception of the first parcel of Les Clos.All the wines completed their malolactic fermentations.They had been racked once and were still on their fine lees at the beginning of June. (At this estate, the wines begin with very little in the way of bourbes or gross lees, since Dauvissat harvests by hand and then presses the fruit gently, without crushing the grapes.) Dauvissat noted that he may give the 2003s a fairly long elevage but that it was too early to know for certain. Dauvissat felt that his 2002s were not especially aromatic at the moment.Their early honeyed character was now disappearing, he explained, and the minerality will only come with bottle aging.But he fully expected these wines to be as strongly mineral as his outstanding 2000s.This traditionalist producer actually uses more new barriques than most of the Chablis estates I visit:normally about 15% for his premier crus and 20% for the grand crus.But the wines have more than enough stuffing to stand up to their elevage in barrels.(Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; the Dauvissat-Camus label is imported by Classic Wine Imports, Brookline, MA)