2012 Chablis Les Clos

Bright, green-tinged yellow. Complex saline nose melds grapefruit, flinty minerality and a leesy nuance, with primary fruit in the deep background. Fat, silky and broad on entry, then energetic in the middle, showing outstanding cut to its flavors of lemon, white truffle, biscuit and petrol. At once rich and tangy, this grand cru needs at least a few years in bottle to come into harmony.

Piuze points out in introducing his 2012 Chablis Les Clos that on past occasions he has never shown the wine from this celebrated site last in his line-up; whereas this year he thinks it has earned that position. I would not disagree, and can well understand why – along among Piuze’s current collection – this wine was to be bottled at some as yet undetermined date not in July. Lusciously juicy, bright pink and white grapefruit are liberally laced with chalk, alkali and saliva-drawing salt on an impressively dense and (for now) firm palate. While this lacks the lift, intricacy or transparency exhibited by its counterpart from Blanchots, it finishes with implacable grip as well as energy and mouthwatering refreshment. Sourced from a single grower but two parcels – one near Blanchots and one up by Valmur, whose fruit was crushed together – like the corresponding Blanchots, this benefitted from extended stay on lees that reflected substantial borrowing other musts. But while “benefitted” is indeed the right word, given how brilliantly both wines have succeeded, their author reports, “We were scared right until the end that there might be reduction problems” or other undesirable consequences. Quebecer Patrick Piuze – a former cellarmaster for Brocard about whose inaugural 2008 vintage under his own name I enthused in issue 191 – has since then significantly expanded his range; further honed his already formidable skills; and acquired some superb new sources of fruit, making his one of the most exciting among France’s modern breed of micro-negociants not to mention among newcomers to Chablis during the past decade. Incidentally, like many of the aforementioned breed, Piuze sells his wines overwhelmingly (at last count, he says, 93%) abroad. He exercises considerable control over the viticultural regimen practiced by his dozen suppliers (three dominant) in the parcels for whose fruit he contracts, and continues to be a tireless experimenter and self-critic in matters of vinification. With 2011, he began utilizing a mechanical rather than bladder press for half of his wines, and in 2012 exclusively, citing his belief that this enhances dry extract and stability, though it requires much more time and someone standing by the press. Piuze adds that this approach also gains him some of the advantages in quality of juice associated with traditional Champagne presses, but that a vertical press such as used in that region is impractical for his large number of small lots and small team (with only two other full-time participants, his partner Sylvie Quittot and his father-in-law). Non-cru wines here are raised almost entirely in tank and crus in previously used barrel. “We picked beginning September 20 in 2012, and as fast as we could” Piuze notes, “because there was quite a lot of rain and it’s easier to pick with water on the grapes that I can dry-off than with water in the grapes.” Alcohols, unadjusted, registered from 11.8-12.3% (very close to the estate’s readings in 2011). “The point is not to pick early but ripe,” Piuze generalizes, “and to pick ripe but not overripe where you lose brightness and saliva inducement for the sake of fat.” Most of Piuze’s 2012s finished malo-lactic conversion by Christmas but alcoholic fermentation only in early spring. “I don’t do this on purpose, it just usually happens” he notes, adding “I don’t know why myself. But the levels of volatility come out all right, and anyway, I don’t like wines that have too little volatile acidity.” Despite what was already the certainty of a late 2013 harvest, Piuze planned to bottle his 2012 crus (excepting Les Clos) already in July, a testimony to economic considerations – “I’m already lucky enough (just) to be able to do what I do, that it’s not even a burden to bottle one stage earlier than I otherwise would” he notes with a grin – but also a policy that has stood his wines well in past vintages. So many sites I hadn’t anticipated were represented in the 2012 line-up that the time I had allotted for our tasting session did not permit opportunity to taste even one of Piuze’s 2011s (nor did my subsequent schedule), so I’ll plan to report next year on how at least some of his efforts from that vintage are faring. Imported by Aliane Wines, La Jolla, CA; tel. (858) 361-4529, David Bowler Wine, New York, NY; (212) 807-1680, and Martine’s Wines Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-0400

Piuze points out in introducing his 2012 Chablis Les Clos that on past occasions he has never shown the wine from this celebrated site last in his line-up; whereas this year he thinks it has earned that position. I would not disagree, and can well understand why – along among Piuze’s current collection – this wine was to be bottled at some as yet undetermined date not in July. Lusciously juicy, bright pink and white grapefruit are liberally laced with chalk, alkali and saliva-drawing salt on an impressively dense and (for now) firm palate. While this lacks the lift, intricacy or transparency exhibited by its counterpart from Blanchots, it finishes with implacable grip as well as energy and mouthwatering refreshment. Sourced from a single grower but two parcels – one near Blanchots and one up by Valmur, whose fruit was crushed together – like the corresponding Blanchots, this benefitted from extended stay on lees that reflected substantial borrowing other musts. But while “benefitted” is indeed the right word, given how brilliantly both wines have succeeded, their author reports, “We were scared right until the end that there might be reduction problems” or other undesirable consequences. Aug 2013, www.robertparker.com