Jules Billaud Chablis, France 2013 (£16.99, Oddbins) It took me a while to really get chablis. I understood that it was supposed to be sharper, more incisive, more seafood-ready than other styles of chardonnay. But too often that was taken to extremes. They were tart, wincingly so, rather than refreshing, and the flavour was restrained to the point of minimalism. I changed my mind after realizing that 1, I wasn’t drinking the right bottles, and 2, chablis is as much about the feeling as the taste. It’s not that they lack in flavour, it’s just that the flavour (green apple, lemon, crème fraiche, minerals) is carried by (and seems to reflect off) the swish of glinting, steely acidity. Which is exactly what happens in this delightful pure, unoaked example from Samuel Billaud.
Tesco Finest Premier Cru Chablis , France 2011 (£13.99) Like most people, I came to chablis via the supermarkets. And while I know there are plenty of wine lovers who will say that I shouldn’t have been surprised that the earth failed to move – that the supermarkets are incapable of doing really interesting wine – these days chablis is in fact something that many of the bigger retailers do quite well. Two producers are behind most of the best supermarket chablis. The refined premier cru wines of Jean-Marc Brocard are worth seeking out at Asda and M&S, while the well-run local co-operative does an excellent job with the straight Chablis at Morrisons, M&S and Tesco, the cheaper (£9) Petit-Chablis at Sainsbury’s, and, the pick of the bunch, the racy but tangy and slightly nutty Tesco Premier Cru.
Isabelle et Denis Pommier Chablis 1er Cru Fourchaume 2012 (£33.50, Berry Bros & Rudd) As with the rest of Burgundy (Chablis is out on a limb at the northerly reaches of the great eastern French wine region), the very best wines in Chablis are made by small producers working in the best premier cru- or grand cru-rated vineyards. Also like the rest of Burgundy, the quicksilver beauty of the top wines from cult producers such as Dauvissat and Raveneau tend to start north or £100 a bottle. There is magic in the premier cru wines of the superb 2012 chablis vintage at slightly more human prices, however, not least in the Pommiers’ exquisite wine from the Fourchaume vineyard, which has a rippling richness of stone fruit to go with the electric acidity and minerals.
