2017 Chablis Les Preuses Grand Cru

I had heard rumors about Vincent Dauvissat's impending retirement, but I have to say I saw little evidence of that on my most recent visit. More importantly, the wines are just off the charts. When all is said and done, Dauvissat made a number of truly epic wines in 2017, culminating with Clos and Preuses, both of which are insanely beautiful. To me, Dauvissat embodies the style of Chablis today. The wines can be quite rich and potent, yet they retain tremendous site expression and plenty of sizzle. Readers will find all of those qualities in the 2017s. Dauvissat compares 2018 to 2009 in terms of balance. As it turns out, I drank a bottle of the 2009 Chablis a few days before I visited. I found it young and not quite ready to offer its best drinking.

It is always a pleasure to taste with Vincent Dauvissat but at the back of my head, whenever admiring the purity and terroir expression of his Chablis from barrel, I am aware that his wines tend to close down after bottling. How many times have I been caught out during blind tastings by a sultry Dauvissat only to revisit the same wine a few years later and marveled at its beauty? Hence for his top crus I have advised on cellaring the wines for a decade so that they have time to put their difficult adolescences behind them. “Only Les Clos was touched by the frost in 2017,” he told me, flitting from barrel to barrel with his magic pipette. “The wines have good acidity. I started picking on 16 September starting in Les Vaillons and finished after nine days of picking in Les Preuses. It was a quick alcoholic fermentation and malolactic so that everything was done by Christmas. That’s because it is a warm cellar. But the wines have good acidity. No chaptalization was necessary and the alcohol degrees come in between 12.5° and 13.0°.”

Predictably, Dauvissat has some serious Chablis to offer in 2017. These are often some of the region’s most intellectual wines that can be extremely reduced in their youth, so my advice on drinking windows suggests several years of cellaring is optimal. Too many times I have tasted a Dauvissat wine blind and been caught out by its sultry reduced nature, only to re-taste the bottle later and find it has blossomed. In other words, if you buy Dauvissat, be sure to be patient. I often have a slight preference for his Les Preuses over Les Clos, yet the Montée de Tonnerre may ultimately represent the best value.