2002 Chablis Beauroy 1er Cru

Not surprisingly in light of recent practice, William Fevre was the first major Chablis producer to start harvesting in 2003, beginning on August 25. Director Bernard Hervet told me that the grand crus were not acidified for the fermentations, but he held out the possibility that some of these cuvees might be adjusted later on. William Fevre owns two sorting tables, which the team used in 2003 to eliminate the 5% to 10% of the grapes that were grilled by the sun, mostly from vines facing due south. The grand crus here are vinified in barrel, while the premier crus are made half in barrel and half in vat (the Montee de Tonnerre Mont Milieu and Vaulorent get a somewhat higher percentage of barrel fermentation). But virtually no new oak was used to vinify the 2003s. Many of the wines then spend five or six months in barrel before being racked and returned to stainless steel in the spring. Interestingly, Hervet says the estate lost much more fruit from frost than from heat in 2003, as the water-dispersal system used here to handle frost was rendered ineffective by wind during the coldest nights of early April. I asked Hervet whether he preferred the estate's 2002s to its 2000s. He responded that vintage 2000 was the best vintage to date for the grand crus, "although many people in the village don't agree. But I prefer the village wines and the premier crus in vintage 2002. "(Clicquot Inc. , New York NY) Also tasted: 2003 Chablis *.

Thanks to the direction of Bernard Hervet and the winemaking talents of Didier Seguier, the Henriot family has not just taken William Fevre to new heights since purchasing this estate in 1998; it has also revitalized the entire Chablis appellation. Today's Fevre wines rank with those of Raveneau and Vincent Dauvissat among the best of the region, and on my latest trip numerous growers commented on the positive example being set by the Fevre team's labor-intensive work in the vines. Indeed, controlled yields is one of the keys to the high quality of recent vintages at William Fevre. Even in 2002, yields ranged from an extremely low 30 hectoliters per hectare to no higher than 50. All of the domain holdings are harvested by hand, except for a portion of the village vines. Although Seguier uses a high percentage of barrels to vinify and age the wines, he uses virtually no new barrels (director Hervet noted that just 25 of 1,000 barrels were new for the 2002 vintage). The team particularly likes one-year-old barriques shipped up from Bouchard in Beaune, a company also owned by Henriot. Hervet believes that the 2002 and 2000 vintages in Chablis offer roughly similar levels of quality, but adds that the 2002s possess slightly more fruit and acidity, as well as a bit more depth for aging. (Seguier noted that the Fevre 2000s benefitted from the estate's high percentage of millerande grapes, which kept the overall crop load to a reasonable level in that copious year.) In 2002, said Hervet, too many people harvested too late and made heavy wines. Fevre applied for special dispensation to harvest prior to the ban de vendange actually starting five days earlier, and brought in fruit with excellent levels of acidity. Hervet noted that Seguier and his team have the unique advantage each year of learning from the Bouchard harvest in Burgundy, which generally takes place a week earlier than the Chablis harvest. Seguier thus has more data for determining how best to handle the fruit, how to carry out the debourbage how much sulfur to use, and so on.In my notes last year, I suggested that the William Fevre 2001s would be among the most successful wines of that difficult year. In fact, these wines are even better than I predicted. The house brought an army of harvesters into the vines early and picked virtually all their vineyards in six days. According to Hervet, William Fevre is the only producer in the region with two triage tables, and in 2001 the team threw out a substantial percentage of fruit to eliminate the berries affected by dry rot. The finished wines are remarkably pale in color and aromatically pure for the vintage; the best of them are outstanding by any measure and should age slowly and gracefully in bottle.