Tasted in Beine with Françoise Michaut – mother of Adrien, wife of Bernard, 17 January 2024.
Domaine de La Motte
41 rue du Ruisseau
89800 Beine
Tel: + 33 3 86 42 49 61
www.chablis-michaut.fr
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Françoise on the last vintages:
“I think that 2023 and 2022 will both be good vintages – we can only hope that 2023 is as good because we like the 2022s a lot!
Vintages ending in 3 are rarely great but we still have high hopes for our 2023s – but there will be less acidity than the last vintage ending in 3 – 2013. All the bottlings have been done for the 2022s”
The wines…
I found fewer great wines in this vintage than I’ve become used to but what a consistently excellent set of wines!
All DIAM5 since 2013 with some other DIAM-style closures in 2019 – ‘We’re not going back!’ The wines all have cuvée names on the back labels but not the main labels, plus in recent vintages new labels – white for the Petit Chablis and the Chablis and blue for all the others:
2022 Petit Chablis Le Cadet
Here’s an attractive, floral, freshness. Supple, broad, with a fine juicy essence of fruit in the finish – simply excellent – with a great nose.
2022 Chablis Le Guilleret
Super nose – there’s width and an engaging freshness. Mouth-filling, super-silky, a wine that comforts as it talks to you. That’s just a beauty!
2022 Chablis Le Jardin du Curé
A single parcel – as the name, near the church and in this case with 20% oak elevage. Older vines here.
Clarity – fine crystalline notes of depth but florals too – yes! Larger and with a little more power. A very modest generosity and fine texture. Slowly fading – I’d keep this a few extra months in the cellar – but that’s simply excellent wine again.
2022 Chablis Vieilles-Vignes l’Authentique
40-60-year-old vines, some of the oldest vines today in Beine. Vines from grandparents. This with 30% of its elevage in wood.
Airy and fresh is the standard here, in this wine with some extra fine-grained complexity too. Ooh! That’s panoramic, it’s also so silky! The wood is very subtle and additive. This is a wine that you could drink straight away – the oak is so discreet and even additive – excellent wine again.
Like the vv this has 25% elevage in barrel – but 600-litre barrels. ‘Some 1ers lost a little of their minerality as the climate became warmer – but not this one! 3-5 years is optimum for drinking this one.’
Really open and fresh – oh that’s so good, complex and mineral – oh and don’t let me forget the florals. Cool – mouth-filling but with most emphasis on the width of flavour. Studied, mineral, less obviously delicious today but this is clearly a great wine in the making – well done!
2022 Chablis 1er Beauroy
Here with 40% large barrel elevage.
Also floral but here there is a concentrated depth of aroma – and this aroma majors on riper yellow citrus. Also a cool style to this flavour – a little fuller, perhaps rounder, more complex and mouth-watering – perhaps faintly more delicious than the Vau Lignau today too but less strict and chiselled structure. It’s simply super – but I think I’ll take the Vau Ligneau today.