Producer Burgundy, France
Patrick Piuze
Patrick Piuze makes Chablis, and he is one of the names people who know the appellation put forward. He is not an old family domaine with a château and a crest; he is a working producer with his own label, and he makes wine right across the Chablis hierarchy, from village level up to Grand Cru.
Chablis itself is worth explaining, because it is the reason his wines taste the way they do. It sits well north of the rest of Burgundy, on its own and a long way from the Côte d'Or, and it grows one grape, Chardonnay, on Kimmeridgian limestone and marl that is packed with the fossilised shells of a small oyster called Exogyra virgula. That fossil bed is what people mean when they talk about minerality in Chablis. There are four appellations: Petit Chablis, Chablis, Chablis Premier Cru and Chablis Grand Cru. The Grands Crus are a single hillside on the right bank of the Serein, north-east of the town, running between 100 and 250 metres, and there are only 99 hectares of it in production, divided into seven named climats: Blanchot, Bougros, Les Clos, Grenouilles, Preuses, Valmur and Vaudésir. Everything else in Chablis, thousands of hectares of it, sits outside those 99.
What draws me to his wines is that they are put together to show the site rather than the cellar. His village Chablis never goes near a barrel: it is fermented and aged in tank, so there is nothing standing between you and the limestone. If what you are after is the oak-and-butter style of Chardonnay you will not find it here, and that is better known before you open the bottle than after.
The range covers the whole ladder, from village wine off old vines on the plateau of the left bank up to Grand Cru from the upper slope of Bougros, one of the seven climats. Tasting the two ends side by side is the clearest way I know to understand what the step up to Grand Cru actually means.
He makes very little of any one wine, and the allocations move around from year to year.
Winery at Chablis · Chardonnay · £42.95 to £129.95 a bottle
