This Chablis might make you a believer, too – and it costs no more than much younger examples. Starting at €48, £42, $55. Above, Daniel-Étienne Defaix and son Paul-Étienne.
Around four months ago, pre MW exam, post a train-wreck blind-tasting practice, I found myself standing in front of a rack of Chablis contemplating the amount of money I was willing to spend on a category of wine that I do not, as a rule, enjoy.
There’s something about the smoky austerity of Chablis, that others seem so wildly fond of, that I find off-putting – causing me consistently to underrate the wines in my quality assessment. Which is, of course, how I ended up in front of the display.
Heaving a sigh, I began pulling bottles from the wine store’s rack into my basket. From classic well-known producers William Fèvre, Louis Michel and Billaud-Simon I stacked a grand cru, two premier crus, a village-level Chablis and a Petit Chablis. Then, from a producer I was unfamiliar with, I added the oldest wine on the rack – a 2010 Les Lys premier cru priced at $55 – the same price as the two current-release premier cru wines. At home I bagged the wines and shoved them unceremoniously into a rack in the front closet behind bikes, camping gear, suitcases and filing cabinets.
Three weeks ago, wrestling bikes aside to put away hiking gear, I discovered the 2010 still sitting on the shelf. Curious, I carried it into the kitchen and plonked it on to the counter next to a roasted chicken.
My expectations were low. The cork was in excellent shape; it was more to do with the fact that, though my quality assessment of Chablis had improved, it didn’t change my preference for fruit and flesh over crisp herbal austerity.
I could smell it before it hit the glass – a billowing cloud of golden brioche, roasted hazelnuts and baked apples. Hardly austere – alongside its obvious notes of development it showed more fruit than any of the young wines I’d purchased and tried in the months prior. It was voluptuously textured and incredibly persistent, with characteristically high acidity.
My partner found me, legs dangling from the kitchen counter, fingers covered in chicken grease and paprika, well into my second glass.
So, was it just the age that made it so much more enjoyable?
In short – yes. But that itself is a story.
Daniel-Étienne Defaix is the 14th generation of Chablis’ oldest domaine, established in 1610. When he took over from his father in 1978, the region was experiencing unprecedented popularity – to the point that the American company Franzia, seeking to capitalise on the name, launched their ‘Chablis’ bag-in-box the same year.
In an effort to meet demand, growers in the region began to decrease the amount of time allotted for élevage (the time between the end of fermentation and bottling – where wines will generally rest on their fine lees). Defaix’s father did the same. However, on comparing his father’s more modern wines to his grandfather’s wines, Defaix perceived reduced complexity and ageing capacity and so he resolved to return to the old way. The only major change he’s made since is moving from hand-picking to machine harvesting, as tasting trials he and his father ran in the 1980s showed a marked preference for machine-picked fruit.
The wine I am recommending today is sourced from the domaine’s 3.5-ha (8.6-acre) parcel of vineyard within the small climat of Les Lys, contained within the larger, umbrella premier cru of Vaillons. The vines in this parcel, planted on Kimmeridgian marl, average 45 years in age, producing concentrated fruit.
After machine-picking, grapes are transported to the winery where they are pressed over the course of three hours. The must is transferred to a stainless-steel tank where it undergoes fermentation with ambient yeasts at 18 °C for around three weeks. The wine then naturally undergoes malolactic conversion, after which it is racked into another stainless-steel tank. The fine lees are stirred once a month for 18 months, after which the wine remains on the fine lees for an additional 6–8 years. The 2010 Les Lys was bottled in April of 2022. (No wonder the cork looked perfect!) The wine then rested in bottle for 6 months prior to release. The resulting wine is 13% alcohol and is incredibly fresh and vibrant but with a satiny richness to the texture. It is wonderfully developed already and I would suggest drinking it within the next 5 years.
This wine is carried by nearly a dozen stockists in both the UK and the US – with the lowest per-bottle prices listed at R&B Wines and Courtier respectively. It is also available in Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Brazil and, of course, France.
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