2006 Chablis Blanchots

Raveneau’s 2006 Chablis Blanchots – from some of the estate’s oldest vines – represents a jump in quality, and not just on account of its expected richness, but also for its clarity, satiny textural allure, flavor diversity, and sheer concentration. Brown-spiced apple, apricot, toasted nuts, meat stock, and tactile chalky minerality mingle in a complex colloquy, and for all of this wine’s opulence, the persistence of mineral dimensions it exhibits is extraordinary. I would expect this to reward at least 10-12 year’s aging. Bernard Raveneau is an unabashed partisan of his 2005s – and no wonder, based on the subset of those that I tasted, including a magnificent Valmur which he rightly terms “complete” and “close to his ideal.” Raveneau is less effusive in praise of his 2006s – each of which I tasted from a selection of barrels – opining that lavish fruit and richness are precisely this collection’s fortes. I think he underestimates the depth of his own 2006s, and only hope I have opportunity to revisit some of them in five or ten years. Importer: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524

Bright, pale yellow. Reticent aromas of white peach, lemon and resiny oak, with a violet topnote. Suave, full and quite dry, in fact downright austere on the back half. A more opulent but less refined style than the Montee de Tonnerre or Butteaux but at the same time almost musclebound today and very difficult to taste. Blanchots makes a heavy wine in the hot years, notes Raveneau, adding that this holding features the estate's oldest vines.

(from the estate's oldest vines) Very ripe aromas of pineapple and grapefruit, with suggestions of exotic fruits; the nose suggests an opulent wine. Then quite backward and dry on the palate, with powerful flavors of pineapple, grapefruit and stone. This is hard to taste today despite its full ripeness, as there's no early sweetness here. Rather austere on the aftertaste. This, too, will require a good seven or eight years of cellaring.