2016 Chablis Vaulorent 1er Cru

My relationship with this Chablis stalwart goes back well beyond my writing days, since I used to sell William Fèvre’s wine to the Japanese market in the late 1990s. Fèvre is a major producer that boasts one of the most impressive arrays of Premier and Grand Crus. Didier Séguier has been head winemaker for several years now. Under Séguier guidance, the Domaine veered away from their rather zealous oak regime to a more prudent approach that mixes barrel ageing with stainless steel. Settling down in the tasting room opposite their own popular bistro, I began by asking Didier about the growing season in 2017.

“There were ten nights with frost at the bottom of the top of the slope,” he explains. “We were particularly affected on the Right Bank and less on the Left Bank. We used sprinklers to protect the vines and very efficient electric cables in Vaudésir, which we expanded to Les Preuses starting in 2018. We are the first estate to start working with the electric wires with Long-Depaquit, but we still use candles. After the frost, the weather was good. The summer was not very warm but the quality of the grapes just before the harvest was perfect even if the quantity was 30% to 50% less than normal. The grapes are concentrated with good acidity, similar to 2014. It is a classic vintage with good freshness and density. For us, it is a vintage for ageing, but the harvest date was important because you could obtain some sweetness if you picked late. There was no botrytis on the sorting table and the wines have the freshness and precision they showed then.” These are reliably consistent wines. I have encountered one or two reductive issues with bottles in recent years and therefore they do warrant decanting if possible.

As is his habit, director/winemaker Didier Séguier started the harvest early in 2016 (on September 16) to preserve acidity. “Otherwise the wines would have been too soft,” he explained. The rain on September 15 had “unblocked” the maturity and the estate harvested with potential alcohol ranging from 12% to 13% owing to the very low yields (Fèvre made just 40% of a normal year in 2016, and much less in vineyards hit hard by frost and hail). Very little chaptalization was necessary. Séguier told me that acidity levels in the 4 to 4.2 grams-per-liter range are comparable to those of the ‘15s.

Séguier finds the young ‘16s “very pure and delineated, with no deviation. They show reductive shellfish notes and good minerality. And they’re dense and concentrated due to the low crop levels.” In comparison, he went on, the 2015s are fruity, silky wines, not as minerally early as the ‘16s “but the minerality will come with three or four years of aging. The wines are very ripe and the fruit dominates, but I wouldn’t call 2015 an atypical vintage. I prefer 2016 today but I may prefer 2015 later as the minerality comes out.”