Tasted in Fontenay-près-Chablis with Nathalie & Julie Fèvre, 09 March 2023.
Domaine Nathalie et Gilles Fèvre
Route de Chablis
89800 Fontenay-près-Chablis
Tel: +33 3 86 18 94 47
www.nathalieetgillesfevre.com
More reports with Domaine Nathalie & Gilles Fèvre
Nathalie & Julie on 2022
“Yes we are happy with the volume – it means that we can breathe more easily – but it’s going to take another year or two with normal volumes to get the stocks back into proper order.”
Nathalie & Julie on 2021:
“We lost an average of 80% – we lost more in Petit Chablis – we even declassified a little Chablis to have enough for a cuvée of Petit Chablis. Here and there were areas with between 5 and 8 hl/ha… So the Petit Chablis is gone, there’s not much Chablis left either. We had some insurance but it doen’t make the day-to-day easier as there’s more demand and less wine – it’s not just that 21 is sold/reserved – 22 is also all reserved – already!”
The wines…
Super wine after super wine finishing with three great ones – beautiful clarity of flavour and structure – wines worth a special search.
All are sealed with DIAM – and for 10 years now – even their larger-format bottles:
2022(!) Petit Chablis
Bottled a few weeks and starting to commercialise this month. ‘It’s true, we always bottle this early, perhaps not always this early – but with a short elevage it’s always a wine that’s more about its fruit than its terroir.’
That’s open and fine yellow-citrus fruited. Full, juicy and energetic – growing in more exotic fruit finale – I have to say delicious wine, but exactly as described – a little less about the place that it comes from.
2021 Chablis
Assembled with the VV parcels this year – they were vinified apart but there wasn’t the volume they wanted/needed.
Nice width – a more mineral-focused nose. Hmm – nicely direct, almost a lush complexity to this juicy wine. That’s completely delicious, excellent Chablis.
2021 Chablis 1er Fourchaume
Bottled in October… For the first time with a small amount of barrel elevage – but you won’t notice
Not a large nose but a compelling one of clarity, salinity and fine minerality. Here is concentration too, framed with a small grain of tannin. Lots of wine here – delicious wine – let it unfurl over the following 2-3 years – but there are some fine citrus bitters in the finish. The finish widening with fine and clean flavours. A beauty!
2021 Chablis 1er Mont de Milieu
In the centre of the vineyard. Négoce – only ‘domaine’ is missing from the label – all barrel elevage, none new with a mix of 228s and 500s.
This is very open, very perfumed too with lots of white flowers, almost acacia but there’s no (visible!) aromatic oak. Clean, pure, the oak can be seen in the background flavour – wait 2 years – but such a clean-cut and silky wine of fine direction. Simply excellent wine!
2021 Chablis 1er Montée de Tonnerre
Bottled one week. A mix of wood and concrete ‘egg’ Bottled in January
An extra width of focused freshness. Cooler, more structure – faintly rustic structure in an interesting sense – the barrel still slightly visible – lovely citrus bitters again. Super but keep 3 years!
About 20% barrel – 228-l – but half of that was new barrels – just over a month in bottle.
Here is aromatic energy – lots of width with a faint creaminess. Ooh – next level structure – this could be a young Preuses – a beautiful finishing wine – slightly calm but hauntingly long. That’s a top 1er cru bravo!
Vines next to Willaim Fevre at the top of the slope.
An airy volume of aroma – almost some stony fruit on the citrus. This takes the structure of the Vaulorent and builds on it. Great scale, slightly chalky tannin, supple, lean muscle, mouth-watering, melting mineral flavour. Top – but you should wait – that said, the finish is like a large rock gathering pace as it careers down a steep hill!
A contract. A small production here – around 600 bottles.
Fewer high tones but more breadth of aroma in the bass notes. More incisive, a little more attack, more of a fine grain of tannin than the chalky style of the peruses – the structure more hidden by the juicy energy of this wine. Some finishing oak flavour but also a growing width of more saline energy – this will be a great comparison the with the Preuses over the coming years. Certainly an excellent Les Clos, potentially better than that!