Tasted in Chablis with Guillaume Michaut, 19 January 2023
Domaine 47°N3°E
Guillaume Michaut, ‘Vigneron à Beines’
89800 Chablis
www.47n3e.fr
Guillaume Michaut has been here since 2018 – but where is here?
We are tasting at Domaine d’Enclos, home of the Bouchard brothers, friends of Guillaume who offered a place to vinify when Guillaume started his solo adventure. Guillaume had been with his family domaine in Beines since 2006 but called time on that in 2017 to start his own eneterprise with his own vision – starting with just one hectare of vines – villages and 1er cru – in 2018.
“I have the chance to vinify my wines ‘in the best conditions’ at their facility in the centre of Chablis” It’s a nice tasting/sales room that they have here, where I tasted with Guillaume, but his wines are not available in this shop. I’d seen these interesting labels for a couple of vintages and had wanted to taste the wines for a while.
Guillaume explains his approach as “I’m looking for the deep precision of the place D47°N3°E (Chablis!) of course with my effect and the effect of the vintage but with the minimum of intervention, working the vines without chemicals and working biodynamically. I use sulfur but it’s at a reasonable level and I have a similar ethic to Damian and Romain here.”
For the vintages spanning 2018-2020 – was working just one hectare of vines – 60% was 1er cru though – from 2022 he expanded to over 6 hectares. And this year, 2023, growing again to just under 8 hectares. Most of his wines are exported (before the large growth of volume) with Tokyo, New York and London accounting for much of his exported volume but he has sales in Paris and in good restaurants too.
Guillaume on 2021:
“Of course, a frosty start – in fact over the year the weather threw everything at us – the maturity was fine but I wanted another half degree of alcohol so extended the fermentation a little with some sugar. In terms of volume, 2021 was as bad as 2016 from my memory…”
The wines…
Very fine winemaking here – there is a lot of finesse to these wines – elegant but they are certainly not lite. A domaine to follow – I’m certainly looking forward to exploring the larger range of wines next year.
2021 Chablis
14 months of elevage – all stainless-steel tank elevage. Bottled at the end of October. Just one parcel on 161-49 rootstock in Beines – ‘my grandfather, didn’t have the right to leave the village!’
A cushioned but pretty nose of ripe lemon-citrus. A touch of gas fades leaving a breadth of flavour, lightly citrus with a mm of cushion to the texture. Broadening in the finish with some extra mineral emphasis and very nice length. A very classy, slightly contemplative wine in the context of the vintage but a very delicious one!
From Côte de Savant – the grapes separated at harvest to produce this and the following wine with different elevage. This with tank elevage like the villages.
An extra width of freshness here – supported by the modest lemon-citrus. Hmm – not extra impact but certainly more airy volume in the mouth – that’s cushioned but still fluid with a hint of floral perfume too. Very silky. A really excellent wine of finesse – a bravo Beauroy!
2021 Chablis 1er Côte de Savant
Here with 500-litre large format barrel elevage. Guillaume is in the process of ‘perfecting/finessing’ his barrel ‘park’
Extra aromatic volume, though the barrel is overt today. A hint of extra cushion too – yet, there’s some additional focus and tension to this wine – it’s a real beauty – but given the oak flavour today I think I’d be waiting about 3 years before returning. Simply excellent stuff.