Domaine Drouhin Vaudon

Domaine Agnès, Didier & Florent Dauvissat

Domaine Agnès & Didier Dauvissat was founded in 1986, and is based in the village of Beine at the eastern end of 1er Cru Beauroy. Agnès and Didier planted all their vineyard themselves. This amounts to around 10 ha now, made up of 3.5ha of Petit Chablis, planted partly on hard Portlandian limestone soils full of marine fossils on the plateau above Fyé, and partly on the more clayey plateau of Beines (hence the name 'Les deux Terres', 4.5 hectares of Chablis planted in the villages of Courgis and Fyé, on south-facing slopes which are the southerly continuation of the slope of the Grands Crus, and finally a 2 ha plot or 1er cru Beauroy which is above the lake slightly toward the eastern side of the middle of this Premier Cru, and exposed to the south-west. The vines are now reaching full maturity and producing what is obviously some very high-quality fruit.

Florent, Agnès and Didier's son, has now joined the domaine and seems to be something of a wine-making talent - as Neal Martin wrote in his 2019/2020 Chablis report 'Could Florent Dauvissat be the next great winemaker to bear that famous surname?'. The wines are made in completely classical way, in stainless steel and aged on the lees for 12 months.

In 2024 the domaine was hard hit - not so much damage was done by the hail itself, although they did get hit, mostly in the vineyards by Beine, but the mildew was hard to fight, treating between the rains, they finished with 40% of a regular harvest.

Domaine des Hâtes

Pierrick Laroche's father farms cereals, and was not very concerned with his family's vineyard, the production of which was sold to the co-operative. Pierrick took them out of the co-operative, and 2010 was his first vintage making wine under his own label.

A very talented winemaker, he currently manages 25 hectares of vines in Petit Chablis, Chablis and Premier Cru, with additional fruit being bought to make his Beauroy and Grand Cru Bougros.

In preparation for bottling under his own name from 2010 onwards Pierrick stopped using pesticides and herbicides in 2009 and has since then manually worked the soil - this great change in practices has seen superb results in the quality of fruit he is now picking.

It is all about freshness and precision here. Classical, deeply mineral wines. Picking perhaps earlier than some of his neighbours Pierrick captures beautiful acidity and brightness of fruit - he then loves giving the wine a long élevage in tank to build texture and weight and complexity. He is not averse to using oak - but it is done at a very minimal level, not systematic - but always sympathetic to the vintage. The Premier and Grand Cru wines do go into oak - but no new wood - and a greatly reduced number of traditional smaller barrels - with Pierrick preferring to use the more subtle demi-muids for the majority of the wines' élevage. The results are bright, elegant wines but with a real shape and feel - classical, but interesting Chablis.

Pierrick has vines from where the domaine is based in Maligny in the north, right down the the south-western tip of the appellation in Courgis, and told us that the rain was significantly worse in the north, so that while he had made 55hl/ha in Courgis, in Maligny he was reduced to a depressing 20hl/ha. In general he thinks the 2024s are a little less 'tense' than the 2021s.