Domaine Francois Raveneau Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons 2018 750ml

Bill Nanson's note on this wine from barrel begins: as always, this wine is so different in this cellar.

Vaillons is the smallest of the domaine's premier cru holdings, 0.49 hectare planted at the end of the 1970s on the middle of the slope, where the family says the exposure is very sunny. The Raveneaus describe their Vaillons as always the most aromatic wine in the range, while still carrying the minerality and salinity they consider proper to Chablis.

The 2018 growing season gave Chablis a crop far beyond the appellation limits, with even top domaines reporting averages near 85 hl/ha, yet the berries were small, golden and thick-skinned rather than swollen by rain. Isabelle Raveneau told Burgundy-Report that the summer was so dry it was too dry for disease, that a light shower on 27 and 28 August straightened the curling leaves, and that picking began on Thursday 30 August with alcohols between 12.5 and 13.2 degrees. Across the region Nanson found 2018 a fleshy, citrus-led year with salinity varying by domaine; here he found it in every cuvée, Vaillons included, and noted that the small oak signature of youth would soon fade. The whole production went into a single bottling, after April 2020.

Winemaking has not changed with the generations since François Raveneau and Andrée Dauvissat founded the domaine in 1948: fermentation begins in tank, the wine spends ten months in mostly old barrels, and bottling follows the next spring. Importer Luc Corporation adds that any new barrel receives the juice from the start of fermentation, on Jean-Marie Raveneau's view that moving a tank-fermented wine into new oak marks it too strongly, and that the mustard wax over the cork is there for long keeping.

In the glass

Nanson tasted it from barrel in January 2020: more vertical at first, broadening with air, more floral and fruit-driven than its stablemates, then wide, incisive, mineral and saline. William Kelley, The Wine Advocate, August 2021, 92 points (as quoted by Takamura): citrus oil, orange blossom, white peach, beeswax and fresh bread, medium to full-bodied, satiny and layered, chalkier and more chiselled than this usually charming climat. Antonio Galloni, Vinous, 95 (as quoted by SommPicks): citrus, slate, white pepper, mint and crushed rocks, with density, richness and energy held in precise balance.

When to open

Kelley's window runs 2025 to 2045, as quoted by Takamura; James Suckling, via SommPicks, says it takes time to open. Jean-Marie Raveneau asks for five years at least, and the importer notes the mineral edge keeps softening past ten.

At the table

Our suggestion: raw scallops with yuzu, grilled turbot, or a plain roast chicken, served without decanting at cellar temperature.

Quick facts

Provenance

Sourced from the Japanese importer.

Sources: Domaine François Raveneau; Luc Corporation (Japanese importer); bottle label; Burgundy-Report (B. Nanson, Isabelle Raveneau interview); The Wine Advocate (W. Kelley) as quoted by Takamura; Vinous (A. Galloni), James Suckling and Jasper Morris as quoted by SommPicks