2009 Chablis Vaulorent 1er Cru

I tasted a wide range of wines at Domaine Brocard with oenologist Nadine Gublin, including the wines of Brocard's other Chablis properties, which are reviewed separately. In 2009, the harvest began in mid-September. The wines were vinified with ambient yeasts in steel and/or oak, depending on the vineyard, and aged on their lees until the malos were finished. The Côte de Lechet, Fourchaume, Bougros, Valmur and Les Clos were fermented and aged in 100-hectoliter conical oak vats. Brocard bottled the 2009s in late 2010 and early 2011. The Brocard wines are generally quite rich and lush in texture relative to most of the other wines in the region. One of the other important characteristics of this lineup is that the most complete, successful bottlings don't always come from the most prestigious sites. I also noted that the house and vintage style marked the 2009s to a greater degree than at many other addresses, while the 2010s show more site specificity. A number of the 2010s were still undergoing malolactic fermentation, so I was only able to taste a selection of the wines from that year. The estate's vineyards are currently being converted to biodynamic farming. It will be interesting to see where the wines go from here.

This estate began harvesting on the late side in 2010 (September 25), according to Julien Brocard, who said that the only problem with harvest rain was the slight diluting effect of morning dew. Grape sugars were sound (the wines now carry 12.8% to 13% alcohol "with a bit of chaptalization"), and acidity levels are in the 4.2 to 4.4 grams-per-liter range, compared to 3.7 to 3.9 in the more exotic 2009s. Brocard describes 2010 as "a classic year from a summer that was not too hot: fresh and minerally, with good ripeness. The acidity brings the minerality, but it''s not a hard acidity like in 2007."