Organizational purists will no doubt note the inconsistency in having a separate Regions category for Chablis. After all, Chablis is as much a part of Burgundy as is Pommard. Technically, that is. I won't argue the point; any discussion of Chablis "belongs" in one of the introduction sections or perhaps in the Wines category. But in fairness to me, when people, schooled, half-schooled or unschooled, talk about Burgundy, they much more often than not are not referring to Chablis, Burgundy's northernmost outpost of winemaking. And vice versa, for that matter.
Pity Chablis. Despite its centuries-long, high-profile winemaking history, it has been forced to contend with being thought of as little more than a generic term for some sort of white wine. Even more humiliating, that wine usually can be picked up by its jug handle. Some might argue that the chablisiens got what they deserved because the area's wines had in fact become more generic just when consumers in the United States decided they wanted to try them. What they got in the '70s and '80s were, for the most part, chardonnays that were clean and simple to the point of being insipid.
Chablis is arguably the world's purest expression of chardonnay, something that makes it, not versions from California and the rest of Burgundy proper, the best choice for the dinner table.
That version of Chablis has largely disappeared in the last 10-15 years as producers (not unlike those in many other parts of the wine world who came to the realization that to make clean, technically sound wine is no longer enough) have re-focused their attention on vineyard and cellar practices. Rather than emphasizing volume, there has been a commendable trend toward decreasing yields to better express what mother nature has bestowed upon them.
The happy result is that once again it can fairly be said that the chardonnay produced in Chablis is the world’s purest expression of that most popular and commercially important white grape. Purest in the sense that the marginal—at best—grape-growing climate in Chablis limits the winemaker’s options. He or she doesn’t have the luxury of allowing overripe grapes to bubble into 15-percent alcohol monsters; there is no use in cloaking the wine in 100 percent new oak. It won’t have the fortitude to stand up to such treatment. In other words, no trickery in the cellar, just chardonnay.
Chablis resembles no other chardonnay. You’re not likely to find a bushel of mango, pineapple and passion fruit in a bottle like you would with one from California. And those in search of the spice, bacon fat and crème brûlée flavors of the Côte d’Or’s versions will no doubt be disappointed by the relative austerity of even the richest Chablis. Perhaps the only comparable style is found in Champagne. There is much sense to this because the two places are only a few miles apart. In fact, Chablis is situated much closer to Champagne than to its brethren in Burgundy. While Champagne shares Chablis’ horrid weather—Champagne’s is probably worse on the whole—many of its great blanc de blancs have a level of richness that most Chablis makers would envy. The champenois have the advantage of being able to blend multiple vintages to achieve a degree of roundness when nature hasn’t been kind. Not so in Chablis. What you’re most likely to find when you uncork a bottle is a nose full of flint, minerals and citrus, a wine that is delicate enough to refrain from taking over the dinner table, yet stout enough to mix well with anything from ceviche and sushi to ripe goat cheese.
Chablis is about as fish friendly as a wine can be thanks to its acidity, and typically non-aggressive weight and alcohol levels.
The good news is that it’s not especially difficult to find well-made Chablis at each classification level (at the lowest rung is AOC Chablis, then comes premier cru and finally, grand cru) though it’s far easier at the top of the pyramid than the middle or lower end. Of even more significance for consumers is that dollar for dollar, Chablis Grand Cru is a relative bargain compared to the exploding prices in the Côte d’Or and California. Burgundy prices have leveled off in the last few years, but during the escalation from the mid-80s to perhaps a few years ago, the cost of Chablis wasn’t moving nearly as quickly. A grand cru from Chablis is generally half the price of one of comparable quality from the Côte d’Or. In reality, many of the better-known premiers crus from Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet have long passed the $50-$70 range that most of the best grands crus from Chablis fit comfortably within. Of course, there are notable exceptions, but for the most part, Chablis is Burgundy’s truly affordable luxury.
Simplicity is another reason to like Chablis. Not that the wines are such; rather, unlike the rest of Burgundy, Chablis is compact and easy to understand. There are more than 30 grands crus and more than 560 premiers crus in the Côte d’Or. Fully one-fourth of France’s officially designated appellations are found in Burgundy. That’s an awful lot of place names to know, and is the primary barrier to entry for consumers into the beauty of wines that should be far simpler to understand because there are only two grapes employed (I don’t count aligoté because few pay it any mind). Chablis, on the other hand, mercifully has only one grand cur and one premier cru designation—technically anyway. There are seven climats within the grand cru designation, and 19 premier cru communes with 17 primary climats within them. So, there are still a bunch of names of note but far fewer than farther south. And finally, there is only white wine in Chablis.
While there is unanimous agreement that the grands crus are indeed grand, this is precisely where any semblance of consensus ends. Many of the premiers crus are considered to be latecomers and pretenders that share neither the excellent and vital exposure of the grand cru vineyards or the proper soil mixture. Instead, it’s said, they were promoted over generic Chablis for political reasons (something not uncommon in France). AOC Chablis is what it is, but much more is expected of a bottle with the far more prestigious premier cru marker. Vignerons in Chablis work in—or over— a veritable Jurassic-era water playground of immense complexity. The basis for the crispness that is the hallmark of Chablis is the soil that is the product of a more than 100,000,000-year-old incubation commencing when the entire area was an ocean floor rather than a gently rising ridge of limestone, fossilized sea creature shells, clay and stone. The seven grand cru climats have the best distribution over these four categories of vine nourishment. This belt of soil—called Kimmeridgean, and named for the southern English village of Kimmeridge at its far northwestern limit—makes its way through Champagne and down to Sancerre in the Loire, explaining the similarity of the dry whites in each place. Though Sancerre doesn't share the complexity of Chablis and Champagne, there is a thread of mineralité and chalkiness that would be recognizable to someone well versed in one but not the others. (There are vignerons in Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire who do conjure exquisite whites, but for the most part, sauvignon blanc makes somewhat simpler, greener wines than does chardonnay at its best.) The Kimmeridgean limestone is visible in the topsoil of the vineyards giving the brown dirt an ashen accent.
The seven Chablis Grand Cru vineyards are neatly arrayed east to west in a ridge-like manner, a geographic fact that accounts for their enviable south- and southwest-facing exposures. Given the difficult climate in Chablis, every extra minute of sunshine the vines get helps.
Aspect is everything in Chablis. The grands crus are neatly arranged just across the Serein River from the town itself. From west to east they are: Les Bougros, Les Preuses, Vaudésir, Les Grenouilles, Valmur, Les Clos—probably the best known of the seven— and Blanchot. The collective vineyard of 242 acres stretches just over a mile with a depth of no more than a third of that at any point. They each share the same soil though at varying depths. They also share excellent south- and southwest-facing exposure, something that has been the justification for their lofty standing, and a bone of contention, too. There are a number of similarly well-exposed spots in the greater Chablis area, and owners of some of those spots argued that because their vineyards faced the same way as the grands crus, they should at least be accorded premier cru status if they already had an AOC Chablis rank.
Château de Béru is a case in point. The Béru family has long sought premier cru recognition for its estate-situated Clos Béru precisely because of its uniformity of soil and excellent exposure, though so far to no avail.
Flat stone—and lots of it—as evidenced in this Les Preusses closeup, is the predominant surface feature of Grand Cru Chablis vineyards.
This isn’t to suggest that many of the premier cru wines aren’t special. But it is more difficult to vouch for the contents of a bottle bearing one of the premier cru climats if you don't know the producer. Some of the better-known ones include the boomerang-shaped Fourchaume, located just to the north of Chablis; Montée de Tonnerre, found across the road from Blanchot; Vaillons and Montmains, allayed parallel to each other just to the southwest of Chablis; and Vosgros, the little “island” to the south of the town. The 1,862 acres of premier cru vineyards have less in common with each other than do the grands crus except that they are all larger than their more esteemed relatives. Château de Béru currently owns nearly an acre of the premier cru Vaucoupin.
There is indeed a Valerie, and she, along with four other family members, works in “her” pinot noir vineyard in Carneros.
Contrary to common perception, Northern California winemaking isn’t the sole province of mega-producers that put out hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of cases each year. While there certainly is a lot of that, as a drive down Highway 29 in Napa Valley suggests, there is actually a great deal of small-scale winemaking taking place, too. Valerie’s Vineyard falls squarely within the very-small category of small-scale.
The one-acre estate vineyard was planted in 2002 by five family members. The vineyard is part of a collection of buildings, pens and stables where Michael and Valerie Coats have lived for 15 years. The other partners are Valerie’s mother and father, Jerry and Chuck Hanson (he is involved with Hi-Time Cellars, a wine-selling institution in Costa Mesa), and Valerie’s sister Vicki Brown. This gang of five all pitch in around the vineyard throughout the year, though it stands to reason that Micheal and Valerie are there most often.
Michael Coats armed with two pruning shears.
This part of Carneros has long been ranch land, and their property was part of a much larger tract that had hundreds of acres of plum trees on it (a fact that might account for the plummy character of the finished wine). Vines had never been planted where they decided to grow their own grapes. According to Michael, whose “real” job is in the PR field, “We like pinot so that’s why we planted it. We’re pretty impulsive so we just did it.”
“You won’t find a vineyard with as many beer cans,” Michael says, noting the adage that it takes a lot of beer to make good wine.
The first vintage was the 2003 and, not surprisingly given the youth of the vines, yielded only 20 cases, all of which were consumed by the partners. Being in the vineyard constantly as opposed to having hired hands going up and down the rows provides a deep sense of understanding of the needs of the vines and the soil. And it takes an extraordinary amount of time.
A view of nearly the entire one-acre Valerie’s Vineyard from the early 20th-century windmill, which was used to generate power long before this remote part of Carneros was wired.
The name of the vineyard was bestowed on it, not by any of the partners, by the vineyard guy they asked to help put down their vines. His response was that he’d love to plant Valerie’s vineyard. They took it as a sign, though there must be confusion from time to time as to which Valerie is being spoken about at home!
The decision to plant pinot noir was an easy one for the partners. “We like pinot,” says Michael Coats, who adds during a walk through the vineyard in late August, “This is perfect pinot weather.”
Their house dates to 1918, and while it has been updated (including the kind of kitchen that could be used in a Food Network show—Valerie is a caterer), it shows none of the trappings of wine country ostentation that might be found in nearby Napa. Valerie’s Vineyard isn’t a vanity project, after all. “We don’t farm for pretty,” Michael says. A close look at the vineyard bears this out. Dry, loamy clay puffs dust clouds during a walk through it. The soil reminds me of the Har-Tru clay I grew up playing tennis on: a fine greenish-gray surface that somehow managed to get all over your clothes after spending a few hours running around on it.
“Pretty” is perhaps not a descriptor that applies to Valerie’s Vineyard; instead, the “gang of five” involved in the project put their time and effort into raising grapes from healthy vines grown in healthy soil.
The philosophy in the vineyard is one of taking responsibility for what is being brought to the land. “We wanted to go organic from the beginning. We use solar; we use our own water on the vines. We have chickens for fertilizer, cover crops, lady bugs and bees,” Michael says, pointing out that these bugs are always a sign of a vineyard’s health. And a healthy vineyard it is. “You can almost watch the vines grow. It’s been a fertile year,” Valerie says. That kind of vigor requires lots of trips through the vineyard to drop fruit, trim extra shoots and clear leaves that take the energy of the vines away from the grape clusters.
The sentiment on the old windmill sums up the philosophy of the growers: Do no harm when making this wine.
Harvest is usually about September 10th each year, a bit of seasonal consistency that is the envy of the Old World where the commencement of the picking can change by weeks from year to year. But according to Michael, the pinot will be picked probably “5 or 6 days later” this year. That might not sound like much of a difference, but, he says, “That’s big additional hang time,” something that will perhaps give the 2009 Valerie’s Vineyard Pinot more plushness than the 2006, 2007 and 2008. As of late August, the grapes were coming along nicely. “A good cluster will feel like a hand grenade,” Michael explains.
As of late August, the clusters were on schedule to become grenade-like in size—the target for pinot noir—in mid-September.
They’re not obsessed with numbers, though they aim for picking at about 25 brix. “Valerie is a caterer, so she’s sensitive to balance and acidity, which are more important,” Michael says, while checking the sugar levels on August 25th. The reading came in at 20, further confirmation that things are progressing nicely. The real measure, however, is far less scientific. “If the seeds are turning brown and the birds are eating the grapes, it’s time to pick,” he explains.
While the aim is to pick around 25 brix—the number on August 25th was 20—the true test, according to Michael Coats, is when “the birds are eating the grapes.”
Work has begun on the 2009 starting with the three to fours hours it took the partners to harvest the vineyard on September 14th. Like its predecessors, the ‘09 will spend about 17 months in a mix of new and aged French oak. And like those Valerie’s Vineyard Pinots subsequent to that first one in 2003, there will be about 125 cases made. The 2006 is in New York now, but won’t be for long because only 20 cases made it out of California. The 2007 will be in New York late this year or early in 2010. The 2008 will follow next summer. The wines are also available through the Valerie’s Vineyard website: www.valeriesvineyard.com.