2018 Chablis Vaudesir

Another brilliant wine from Billaud is the 2018 Chablis Grand Cru Vaudésir, a beautiful cuvée that wafts from the glass with scents of citrus zest, crisp orchard fruit, freshly baked bread, honeycomb and dried white flowers. Full-bodied, satiny and incisive, it's layered and complete, with fine depth at the core, racy acids and a long, elegantly perfumed finish.

Fermented in demi-muids. The malo was very slow this year (hard to know why, says Charles Taylor MW of Montrachet Fine Wine Merchants). In fact it finished in Les Clos only 2–3 weeks ago, which is why that wine was not in the tasting. This is the first wine where I have been aware of the oak, in its effect on the aroma and flavour, but it is delicate and mealy rather than overloaded with oak spice. Quite oaky on the palate too, fuller in the mouth than the premiers crus that are only partly barrel fermented, creamy, fresh, moderate intensity and decent length. Seems that it will be a wine you can drink in relative youth though it needs its 6 months in tank to lose some of the oak fat and tighten up into its more sinewy stony mineral character. (JH)