Refreshing, Tension-Filled Old-Vine Chablis. $25

Gautheron’s 2019 Chablis Vieilles Vignes packs a delicious punch

We’ve imported Chablis from the Domaine Gautheron for nearly a decade. Cyril Gautheron’s precise, elegant, well-priced white Burgundies have become a staple at our warehouse tastings, our kitchen table, and the cellars of many of our readers.

Gautheron’s wines burst with juicy, stony fruit and lipsmacking flavor. Cyril uses oak barrels sparingly, and only to offer a whisper of support for the intense, concentrated fruit. Today we’re suggesting his excellent old-vine Chablis, a remarkable amount of density and complexity packed into a $25 bottle.

Drawn from vines planted in the 1950s, the Chablis VV shows excellent dry material. It’s raised in 30% barrel, but there’s no oak apparent in the profile — the wine shows a soft savory spice that suggests grape skins, herbs, and dried flowers. Think Chablis that wants to be Muscadet: dry, intense, stony, and full of life.

In recent warm years Cyril has become a master of channeling ripeness into a tidy package — his wines (like all of Chablis) have become a bit more fleshy, but no less Chablisien. Where some modern Chablis falls flat, missing character and tension, Gautheron’s cuvées remain vibrant and alive. It’s hard to come up with a better $25 bottle in our cellar.

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Gautheron Chablis VV 19
bottle price: $25

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