June is Chablis month at Willette Wines! Well, in our hearts, every month is Chablis month at Willette Wines, but this month is different. Like Sarah Jessica Parker, who tried and tried to have more babies and finally got two blessings at once, we looked for years and years for a great and well-priced Chablis and then found two at the same time. After going back and forth about the pros and cons of one over the other, I finally came upon the very simple solution – represent them both! SJP wasn’t about to send a twin girl back to the mother, nor was I going to look my great fortune in the mouth and not take advantage of finding these two wines.

Chablis is one of those wines, which, like rose or screw caps wines, suffers from a huge disparity between how they are seen by the general public and how they are cherished by the wine world. Unfortunately, when California first started producing white wines, they called everything ‘Chablis’, regardless of the grape or quality level. Usually, Chablis came in those big jugs made by Ernest and Julio Gallo or someone of the like. The irony is that Chablis went from being associated with one of the best, most coveted wine regions in France to being white plonk in a jug. Leave it to the Americans!

Finally, the French government wizened up and forbade anyone outside the appellation of Chablis to use that word on their wine label unless they were actually Chablisien.  (I still wonder how this works - is there a ‘Wine Gestapo’ who enforces these rules on a world wide level? Or is there just a gentleman’s agreement that when France, the motherland of wine, makes the rules, we all must listen? At any rate I am in full agreement, regardless of why it seems to be working).

Unfortunately, though, Chablis still suffers from this association. In a way I don’t mind, because there is so little great Chablis out there, it allows wine insiders to have it as their own secret garden.  I have a lot of friends who are astonished when I order Chablis at a restaurant. First of all, they think Chablis is the grape, and that they are about to get something that they wouldn’t even use to clean their car.

To set the record straight, Chablis is small town in France, as well as the name of it’s wine growing appellation. Chablis is always 100% Chardonnay. It is located about one hundred miles south of Champagne and one hundred miles northwest of Burgundy, putting it right in the confluence of my other two favorite regions. It is the northmost region where growing still wine is viable. Since it is even colder than Burgundy, the wines have higher acidity and the vines have to dig even deeper in the soil than their southern neighbors do to get nutrients. This means that the wines have an incredible level of minerality and purity. They are known to have a ‘flinty’ or ‘steely’ taste. This is due to the Kimmeridgean clay and chalk soil, which contains lots of sea matter such as fossils and stones. Most of the wines are fermented in stainless steel, unless they come from important Premier Cru and Grand Cru areas, and then they see some oak (mostly used). This makes them paradise for people who like lean, racy wines with beautiful mineral expression.

Of our two new Chablis, the first is based in the village of Courgis. The George family domaine spans 17 hectares and is planted to Petit Chablis, Chablis, Chablis Vieilles Vignes (45+ years of age), and Premier Cru ‘Montmains’. Chablis from this region displays intense minerality, as the vineyards are situated high on the slopes and the soil cover is quite thin.  Now run by two generations of the George family, the wines from this estate are classy, stylish and unmistakably Courgis.

Our second Chablis is from the Béru family. Their family has owned the historical Château de Béru domain for 400 years. Until the phylloxera crisis at the beginning of the 20th century, when all the vines were uprooted, the domain used to rely solely on wine for it’s revenues. It was only in 1987 that the Comte Éric de Béru, out of his passion for wine, undertook to replant the entire vineyard, and in particular, the famous Clos Béru. Since his death, his wife, Laurence, and their daughter Athénaïs, are now running the domain. They have invested a lot to improve the quality and give a fresh start to the domain. These tremendous efforts and the choice to adopt organic farming are beginning to bear fruit, and have been noticeable now since the 2004 vintage.

We import two of their wines – a Chablis AC as well as a Premier Cru called Vaucoupin.  
The vines for the Chablis AC are approximately 20 years old, grown on very rocky soil.  The wine is fermented in stainless steel and is bright and mineral driven.  The Premier Cru ‘Vaucoupin’ consists of a narrow strip of clay and limestone located on the eastern slope of the Chichée plateau. It’s highly calcareous and rocky soils formed during the Kimmeridgien era. It is too steep to use machines so is worked by hand.  In order to avoid the use of herbicides and to increase the life in the soils, the parcel is now plowed with a horse. In 2006, the Château de Béru took over a 60- acre parcel located in the centre of the Premier Cru 'Vaucoupin'. The grapes are handpicked and fermented in stainless steel and oak barrel for fermentation. The wines are aged on their lies during almost a year.