Chablis 2018: A tale of vintage versus terroir
Grand Cru vineyards basking in the sun in Chablis.
The story of the 2018 Chablis vintage has two themes. On one hand there’s the extremely dry and warm conditions that dominated the run to harvest. On the other hand there’s the story of very, very high yields.
Some growers would say these things work well together, a perfect storm of sorts. But the risks for wine quality associated with extreme heat and drought on the one hand and high yields on the other meant it was hard to produce classically great wine from the 2018 harvest.
My tastings and visits were staged over a warm July week in the region and the weather above ground certainly seemed appropriate for the sunny 2018 wines being tasted below in the Chablis cellars.
Two outstanding 2017 wines in bottle were a reminder of just how strong the character of a good vintage can register here. William Fevre’s majestic 2017 Grand Cru Les Clos tops this report with convincing, classic style. It will live a long time in the cellar and deserves the chance to age.
The iconic Francois Raveneau sign is like something from a Tim Burton movie.
The great Les Clos vineyard managed to deliver some very good wines despite some challenges in 2018 too. The 2018 Les Clos bottlings of Jean-Paul et Benoit Droin, Vincent Dauvissat, Patrick Piuze, Albert Bichot and Francois Raveneau all hit a high mark in this year’s tasting and reminded us of the extreme influence of terroir in a region like Chablis. Also, the adage that great makers make great wines in tough vintages rings true here, as these are names that consistently hit the mark.
Chablis 2018 follows the sun
But for the most part the sun registers strongly in the young 2018 wines. Many wines lower down the ladder of classification are buoyed by rich, fleshy fruit and deliver more up-front enjoyment than they would in a more classic year. Inexpensive peachy 2018 Chablis fruit bombs will be enjoyed far and wide.
The upper tiers, in particular the Premier and Grand Cru wines, are worth drinking early on, though in a few cases (often producer-driven) the wines are worth leaving alone for a decade. Time will dim the sunny sheen on these chosen few and allow site-driven character to shine through instead.
“There’s not that razor sharp Chablis acidity in 2018,” says Patrick Piuze. “But there is good definition of place. The dry conditions drove vines to drink deeper down in the soil profile.”
Benoit Droin, 14th-generation winegrower at Jean-Paul & Benoit Droin, discusses the 2018 with Nick Stock.
Piuze makes a wide array of wines that, true to his word, are driven by their location. “Overall it’s a good consumer-friendly vintage, somewhere between 2009 and 2015,” he adds. “Some old people in the region compare it to 1982. I think we will have a good surprise with the best wines in time.”
The wines worth holding onto are certainly drawn from the best sites, but producers that work with lower yields as a norm are also worth a look. Piuze notes that the vintage was analytically similar to the recent 2015 harvest, specifically in terms of pH and alcohol levels, but that there is a lot more dry extract in 2018. “I’ve never seen so many healthy grapes, and even with the large number of grapes we had, there is no weakness in the mid-palate because of the high dry extract.”
In the cellars of both Vincent Dauvissat and Raveneau, this combination of lower yields, trademark concentration and plenty of extract means the wines have great presence and texture, even if the finish lacks the acidity. They farm great parcels well and they’re at the top of the rankings in plenty of cases here. “It is a very generous and easygoing vintage,” says Isabelle Raveneau. “Not the most classic for Chablis, but it is drinking well and earlier. There’s plenty of it too, it’s the most wine we have made since 2011.”
Chablis 2018: Hold or drink?
The key to understanding what to drink and what to hold from Chablis 2018 can be found in the finish of these young wines. Some wines deliver a late stream of minerals or saltiness and these are the wines that will hold and carry in the cellar. These will offer characterful and distinctive drinking once the glow of the 2018 harvest has faded. In the meantime, we can enjoy the many well-made, early-drinking wines while the great 2017s are given a deserving rest.
Nick Stock awaits a barrel sample at the Vincent Dauvissat cellars with Vincent Dauvissat himself.
Personally, I would go back and take a serious look at any 2017s you can find on retail shelves and wine lists. The 2018s are going to be delicious when they are young and some may even age well but 2017 is exceptional as I noted in my tasting report last year. They have serious Chablis character with a sturdy backbone of acidity, concentration, weight and ripeness. It was a great vintage for so many producers right across the scale of classification.
It is telling that producers like Raveneau and Vincent Dauvissat top the region in vintages that are very different in terms of the style of the growing season, harvest conditions and the wine styles produced.
The 2017 wines of William Fevre are also uniformly great and offer outstanding breadth. Also the 2017 wines of Louis Michel, whose wines are thrilling now and laced with potential.
Other producers who have delivered strong quality in both 2017 and 2018 are Patrick Piuze, whose extensive range of wines speak clearly to terroir in both vintages, Jean-Paul et Benoit Droin, whose holdings are strong in Premier and Grand Cru sites and whose wines are tightly focused in both vintages, and Christian Moreau, who has pinned the authentic character of site driven Chablis to the target in both 2017 and 2018. — Nick Stock, senior editor