03/22/2018
This Week on the Tasting Bar
2016 Louis Michel Chablis
At this point telling you that Sher and I love Chablis is the pinnacle of redundancy. You know, kinda like Tweeting THERE IS NO COLLUSION!
Yet for pure drinking pleasure it’s hard to top either the deliciousness or value of these mineral-driven chardonnays from Burgundy’s northernmost region.
Plus, we love to eat sea creatures. Be it a platter of briny oysters, a sweet meaty crab or lobster, rich, buttery scallops, or a simple filet of sole, there’s a style and weight of Chablis to match.
Moreover, for terroir-geeks, Chablis is practically the poster-child argument for those who deny the existence of terroir. (Phooey on them!) And this week’s flight of seven wines — five of them premier crus — from the outstanding Domaine Louis Michel provides ample illustration of the terroir found across Chablis’ finest vineyards.
Founded in 1850 in the village of Chablis, Domaine Louis Michel has a remarkable string of first-rate vineyard holdings across the region, including parcels in seven premier cru and three grand cru vineyards.
In 2006 young Guillaume Michel, then working in the communications field in Paris, followed what he describes as a childhood dream, returning to Chablis to continue his family’s long history in the vineyards.
He represents the 6th generation to run this historic domaine.
As it is with all of today's top producers, Domaine Michel is focused on the health of its vineyards as the key to excellence in the bottle. As such the estate practices organic farming methods across it vinyeard holdings, as well as hand-harvesting — still a relative rarity in Chablis — for all but its Chablis AC and Petit Chablis vineyards.
But most unusually, unlike most other producers, who tend to use a mix of stainless tanks and (generally) neutral wood barrels, Louis Michel, for the past 40 years, has used only stainless tanks to raise its wines — even the grand crus — believing that these completely neutral vessels bring out the purest expression of their wines’ terroirs.
As many of you know 2016 was a disastrous vintage in much of France, largely due to spring frosts that clung to the fruiting vines at night, followed by morning sunshine that caused the ice to act like a magnifying glass, as the sun's rays burned the young berries within.
Eager to experience the results of this challenging vintage, I recently tasted through the currently available range of Louis Michel’s 2016 Chablis (grand crus arrived later in the year) and found them to be tauter than their 2015 counterparts, which themselves were notably energetic given that warm year.
Although quantities may be small these are delicious wines.
We invite you to taste them with us.
Friday, 5 - 7
35.00 for the 7-wine flight
