1997 Chablis Vaillons 1er Cru

At the time of my visit, Jean-Marie Guffens had recently decided to sell off a good portion of his 1998 Verget wine to the negoce(including all his Saint-Romain and parts of cuvees of Saint-Aubin and Meursault) because he did not think their quality would justify the prices he would have to charge his regular customers. And the negociants were still paying a huge premium for wine from this vintage, although Guffens hastened to point out that the wines he sold off "I vinified for free." "It not a bad year, just too expensive," Guffens explained; "1998 is proof that Guffens is very intelligent but not a magician." The grapes had been expensive to begin with-when they were available at all. Guy Robin would not sell Guffens any Chablis Valmur, and Guffens passed on Chassagne-Montrachet La Romanee due to the very high price asked for grapes. Some of his suppliers asked Guffens to buy must rather than grapes, but he refused, as he would not have been able to separate the various juices at the pressing-essential for his subsequent work with the lees. Purchased quantities of a number of his lieux-dits were so tiny that Guffens declassified them to make village blends. Guffens did a longer debourbage than usual in '98 ("When you saw the lees in '98, you were glad you didn't use them"), then stirred the lees every three weeks or so "only to freshen them." The wines were all to have been racked before the heat of summer. While Guffens is souring on the pricing situation on the Cote de Beaune (grape prices for chardonnay crus have more than tripled since 1992, while his retail prices have barely doubled), he is bullish on the south of France, where he has a major venture underway in the Luberon. In addition to having recently purchased the Chateau des Tourettes, situated at an altitude of about 400 meters, he will also introduce a negociant line of wines called Verget du Sud, the best of them based on grenache and syrah. Among the standouts from my early tastings of '98s are the Grand Vin de Chateau des Tourettes, a sweet, sappy wine that spent a full month on its skins and boasts 14.4% alcohol; this wine may yet be strengthened by the addition of some fat, smoky 42-year-old grenache (superripe aromas of crystallized berries and black cherry; superb lushness in the mouth; strong impression of rocky terroir and big, peppery tannins). The property's second wine, Les Petites Tourettes, will rate as a terrific value in the $10 range. (Fruit of the Vine, New York, NY; also a Peter Vezan Selection; importers include Ideal Wines, Medford, MA; Barrique Wine Company, Chicago, IL; The Wine Company, Minneapolis, MN; North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA; Estate Wines Ltd., San Rafael, CA; also available through Patrick Lesec Selections, imported by The Stacole Company, Boca Raton, FL and Bacchus Importers, Baltimore, MD.)

In recent years, Jean Marie Guffens has occasionally found his sources of Cote d'Or chardonnay cut off by suppliers. More than one vineyard owner has been abashed to read rave reviews for Guffens' wines while his own bottlings from the same raw materials have been ignored by critics. Today, there a new wrinkle in the relationship between grower and negociant A number of Guffens' suppliers, it seems, are happy to have their names publicized as the source of a Verget wine. They have used this new notoriety to hike prices for their grapes or to domaine bottle more wine than in the past, in some instances commercializing their wine for the first time. So, once again, Guffens must find new sources of fruit. Not surprisingly, Guffens has scorn for growers who, with no track record for making good wine, suddenly imagine that they can command top prices for their own bottles. His modest analogy: "That would be like saying 'He used to sell paint to Picasso; now he makes his own paintings.'" x000D x000D x000D x000D x000D x000D x000D x000D x000D x000D x000D x000D Not surprisingly, the Verget '97s were among the standouts of the vintage; at the time of my visit, Guffens planned to bottle them before the '98 harvest, or, at the latest, just after. Among the extraordinary collection of Verget '96s are a couple of remarkable examples of Chablis, which some purists may well find too rich for their blood. As I mentioned last year, Guffens says that simply because so much of what people accept as typical Chablis is nasty, machine harvested, cold stabilized, over sulfured, under fruited, stripped, skinny wine. "My wines are Chablis," Guffens insists. "Nothing I do compromises their terroir character." Guffens then cited a comment from the renowned Swiss taster Jacques Perrin which perfectly describes the way great wine transcends its category while remaining genetically true to its roots: "A great wine goes away from its cepage like a genius child from its mother." (Fruit of the Vine, New York, NY; also a Peter Vezan Selection; importers include Ideal Wines, Medford, MA; Barrique Wine Company, Chicago, IL; The Wine Company, Minneapolis, MN; North Berkeley Imports, Berkeley, CA; Estate Wines Ltd., San Rafael, CA; also available through Patrick Lesec Selections, imported by The Stacole Company, Boca Raton, FL and Bacchus Importers, Baltimore, MD.)