Vincent Dauvissat Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses 2019 (RP97)

Country:               France
Region:                 Burgundy Rating:                  BH94, RP97
Grape Variety:   100% Chardonnay
Type of Wine:     White Wine
Bottle Size:          750ml

Allen Meadows - Burghound 94
An overtly floral nose speaks of white orchard fruit, iodine, shellfish and cool citrus wisps. As is virtually always the case with this wine, the medium-bodied flavors possess a sophisticated and wonderfully refined texture that carries over to the powerful yet elegant finale where a hint of warmth gradually appears. This is a relatively big wine for Preuses, yet the balance is near perfect. *Burghound Don't Miss!*

By Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 97
The 2019 Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses is brilliant, unwinding in the glass with notes of oyster shell, orange blossom, iodine, wet stones and freshly baked bread. Full-bodied, deep and tightly wound, with racy acids, chalky structuring extract and an incredibly intense, pungently saline finish, this is a magical young wine from Dauvissat. Technically retired but very much a continuing presence at his eponymous domaine, Vincent Dauvissat—who forsook a career as a shepherd to become one of France's most celebrated vignerons—couldn't disguise his satisfaction as we tasted his recently bottled 2019 portfolio. After some discussion, we settled on the 1989 vintage ("but tighter and more incisive") as a possible analogy for 2019's hyper-concentrated, ripe, but all the while classically Chablisien style. In any case, they're some of the wines of the vintage and are well worth seeking out. Readers will remember that farming here is organic but without certification. The harvest is by hand, and the wines ferment in tank before racking to barrel with the lees (Raveneau's Chablis, by contrast, are racked to barrel more or less without their lees), spending a second winter in wood before bottling. A first bottling, destined for the American market, sees a light filtration; a second bottling—some of which is sealed with wax, some of which sees a foil capsule and some of which is sold under the Dauvissat-Camus label—will come out a little later in the year, and doesn't.