2022 Petit Chablis

It is always a pleasure to taste with the Canadian turned Chablis winemaker, Patrick Piuze, not just because of his wines but because he is always candid in his assessments of vintages. “In 2022 I started picking on September 1 and picked over 14 days, stopping on one afternoon,” he said as we tasted in his quite cramped cellar. “It was very warm, so we had to do the débourbage [settling] after six hours. The reduction didn't go into the backbone of the wine. The yields are around 50-55hL/ha thanks to good rain on August 15 when there was a full moon. It was a relatively easy vintage [echoing the sentiment of Duplessis earlier that day] apart from racking fast. Everything went fast in terms of fermentation and malo, and so everything was done by the end of November. It didn’t combine with the sulfur, so everything is around 65mg/L with between 11.8% to 12.2% alcohol. I thought it was going to be like 2009, but it has the bitterness of the 2012 due to the extract.” The sheer number of cuvées that Piuze produces can be a bit disorientating at times, especially with his various “Terroir de…” cuvées. But each has its individualities that make them interesting to taste, just a couple like the Terroir de Courgis and Les Roncières seemingly compromised by the warm season.