I have some history with other vintages of Chablis Premier Cru Vaulorent 2015 from William Fevre, the next wine we drank at the Elitistreview 20th anniversary lunch – when I first tasted the 2005 I said, “I cannot remember having better Chablis than this.”
Three years later I put my finger on exactly why I was so impressed with this wine, “it has the density of a Grand Cru but the finesse of a top, screamingly beautiful Premier Cru”. Indeed, the Vaulorent vineyard is positioned between the only Premier Cru on the hill above the village of Chablis and a Grand Cru – it has characteristics of both.
I was really taken with the 2007, declaring, “The weather conditions seem to have suited the style of the climat to such an extent that it prescribes a new quality baseline that screams beyond the now-comparatively pallid wines of the past and sets towering standards that future vintages will struggle to achieve.” I think I liked it!
However, the vineyard alone cannot a good wine make! When I tried Nathalie et Gilles Fevre’s 2014 interpretation, having smelled it it I reported, “I did not want to taste this, and I would have been correct not as the wine had enough residual sugar to fill an endocrine ward with diabetics. The only other flavours that were there were unbalanced, emetic oak-derived filth.”
Let us have some of the quality hooch!
Chablis Premier Cru Vaulorent 2015, William Fevre
When this was first popped and poured it was a tiny bit neutral, so everyone seemed to neck their glasses with incredible speed. I thought, “There is more to it than this!” and did a bit of Broadbenting; I kept it is my glass swirling for a little while.
The fools! They missed out on an incredible experience! After only 2-3 minutes of swirling, it exploded with more beauty and complexity than anyone can reasonably ask of any Chardonnay!
It was charged with a stone-y intensity. It had real power and density yet remained incredibly elegant and supremely refined. That Grand Cru/Premier Cru dichotomy the young wine shows but magnified to the nth degree in a mind-bending, warped-time-space of dazzling beauty and intensity.
Sure, I can say things about nuts and flint and gunsmoke, but yeah, yeah… We all know fine, mature Chablis has those characteristics. This was far better than a collection of hackneyed, clichéd and trite adjectives. It was an extreme expression of total beauty and stunning wonderfulness. You have not had great Chablis until you have had this wine.
It was truly great. Grand vin, as Clive C would say, but it was far lovelier and more beguiling that such a simple summary can begin to encapsulate.
Phew! I have got emotionally drained just reliving the experience of tasting this classy wonder. I have got to stop.
Alas, I only own ten bottles of young Premier Cru Vaulorent, they will be consumed with hilarious pleasure when they are ten or slightly older. If anyone just downs them, I will give them a Chinese burn… No! I’ll decant the wines, as one should always do with properly serious Chardonnay.
I implore you, if you have some top Chablis, and I think it would be hard for one to be much better than this but anyway, and good storage facilities, keep them! You will be rewarded far more than the cost of professional storage.
What a wine… Again, I forget who bought this, but thank you, thank you so much!
See you tomorrow!
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