Tasted in Chablis with one of Vincent’s daughters – Etiennette – Vincent was moving boxes! 12 January 2018.
Domaine Vincent Dauvissat
8 rue Emile Zola
89800 Chablis
Tel: +33 3 86 46 11 58
Etiennette on 2017:
“2017 – easy! No pressure from maladies, of course some frost for at least 4-5 nights. In Les Clos and Forêts we lost a lot – lots of caterpillars in 2017 too. The flowering wasn’t bad after the frost though and the growth in the vines – everything pushed fast. A royal harvest – very clean perhaps about 15% lower volume versus a regular vintage in the end. ”
Etiennette on 2016:
“2016 was a catastrophe – never before. Even my grandparents said they had never seen such rain at the start of a vintage. We had so much hard and manual work and then parts were devastated by mildew – we didn’t have a lot to press. Of-course some parts were hailed too – they looked like winter in July! There’s definitely less than half a regular harvest here, but we still managed to make each cuvee – Preuses was the best but Les Clos was one of the worst for volume. We had a slightly longer elevage and it was difficult to manage and maintain the barrels as given the volume, not all were being used in 2016.”
The bottling of all the cuvées is done, the last ones completed the day before I visited.
The wines…
The recent bottling – or the moon? Most of the wines had a little tightness of aroma (it was the same in my earlier visit of the day) yet there was a palpable calm elegance about these wines – very Zen. But their pure complexity was absolutely compelling!
2016 Petit Chablis
I’m not sure that I’ve ever noted overt oak in a wine from this domaine before – but at this early stage this wine has it:
Ooh that’s a very attractive round and fruity nose – accented with a little oak. A little oak on the palate too but round and delicious wine, slowly mouth-watering flavour. Love the finish here
2016 Chablis
Fresher, a very pretty and inviting nose. Supple, some richness here, growing in salinity – bottled yesterday. Beautiful in the finishing mineral flavour – a great finish…
2016 Chablis 1er Sechets
A little more vibrant and mineral this nose. Calmer in the mouth but wide and mineral – getting better and better with every second in the mouth. A suggestion of toffee in the fine finish – yum! A finishing touch of tannin too!
‘We managed to make some wine here in 2016’
Modest bit slowly growing in width – mineral in the base. Really this is super, extra complex, good energy, such a width of interesting minerality. Great Vaillons. Great finishing…
2016 Chablis 1er Montée de Tonnerre
The 4th vintage – a very small plot and lots of frost here.
A wide and pretty nose of good mineral impression. Really fine, elegant, and with pretty touches of complexity – long languorous wine. Excellent.
Tight but offering a very pretty line of aroma – super fine. Lots of volume, fresh and mouth-watering layers of delicate complex mineral and fruit notes. This is another really great Forêts in 2016. Persistent and energetic with an element of calm reflection – yes!
This nose is tight up top but deep and impressive below. Just a little more volume in the mouth, the flavour adding touches that are more intense, yet like the last there’s a calm to the wine. Über-delicious – great wine.
Like all the wines today, aromatically a little tight. More overtly mineral, beautifully textured, mouth-watering flavour – this more about the rock than the Preuses – that wine is more delicious today, but this is lovely in the finish. Great wine today but even greater in the future. It sustains a wonderful finish.
One for the road…
The colour is relatively young, but the nose already has the truffle of maturity. A nice fresh entry then opens wide, wide, wide in the middle and finish. I love the acidity and because of this I guess 2007 – it’s actually 2005, who would have thought? Such a lovely and open wine – 2005 Forêts.