Description
Domaine de l’Enclos, Chablis
When today’s wine made the rounds at our tasting table, everything ground to a stunned halt. It was like we were all judges on some TV singing-competition show and we’d just heard the next Aretha Franklin. The wine doing the singing was a $35 village Chablis from Domaine de l’Enclos, and as an encore, it outperformed another (highly respected) producer’s Chablis Grand Cru when compared side-by-side.
Once I realized who was behind Domaine de l’Enclos, I was no less impressed but a little less surprised: Romain and Damien Bouchard grew up in Chablis working alongside their father, Pascal, and the heart of their operation is a significant stand of prime Chablis vineyards that has been in their family for generations. They may have only launched their Domaine de l’Enclos label in 2016, but this is no rookie operation—it’s a pair of seasoned vintners working with mature, organically farmed vines. Their first few years of operation have, in fact, been focused largely on sustainable viticulture, and I can’t help but notice that 2018 was also the year they achieved official organic certification. The purity, tension, and texture of this wine, at this price, is simply mind-blowing. If you are a white Burgundy fiend like me, you owe it to yourself to grab as much as budget and space will permit!
Pascal Bouchard sold his extremely successful business in 2015, but he held onto his family vineyard holdings to pass along to Romain and Damien. The brothers had previously been making their own wines in a small corner of the Pascal Bouchard winery, but, once equipped with 30+ hectares of well-placed vineyards, with an average age of 30 years, the time was ripe to set up their own shop. In addition to spending their first years refining their viticultural practices and pushing for organic certification, they constructed a new cellar underneath their family home in the town of Chablis proper. It’s a modern cellar, but one which employs many traditional practices, including moving all juice/wine by gravity only.
Fruit for this hierarchy-busting village Chablis was sourced from estate vineyards in the villages of Chablis, La Chapelle Vaupelteigne, Beines, Fontenay and Villy. The sites encompass a variety of exposures but are rooted mostly in the chalky Kimmeridgian limestone Chablis is so famous for, with some flatter parcels containing more clay and Portlandian limestone. The wine was fermented using only ambient yeasts in stainless steel, followed by nine months of aging on the fine lees (spent yeasts) in tank.
With today’s ’18, there’s no better way to say it: The Bouchards absolutely nailed it. The wine is substantial—powerful, even—but also fresh, bright, mineral, and laser-focused. Lately I’ve tried plenty of rich, almost tropical Chablis wines that have me lamenting the creep of climate change, but this one restores my faith. In the glass, it’s a pale yellow-gold with flashes of silver and green, with textbook aromas of green and yellow apple, lemon zest, white flowers, crushed oyster shells, and wet stones. It is medium-bodied and has a hint of creaminess, but there’s a spine of minerality and citrusy freshness lending loads of snap. This is an example of Chardonnay at the height of its powers—at once substantial and palate-coating but full of racy, mouth-watering energy at the same time. This one should continue to evolve beautifully over the next 3-5 years, but that would assume I’m not going to make it my house white starting immediately: Decant it 15-30 minutes before serving in all-purpose stems at 45-50 degrees and you’ll be blown away by the quality. Let the wine shine alongside some whole grilled fish, prepared simply and drizzled with copious amounts of lemon. The only question left is: Why can’t we drink (and eat) this well every night?
