DAUVISSAT 2020 CHABLIS PREUSES GRAND CRU

WINE ADVOCATE 97 POINTS - "Offering up aromas of orange oil, white peach, jasmine, oyster shell, wet stones and struck flint, the 2020 Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses is full-bodied, ample and layered, with terrific concentration, racy acids and a long, intensely mineral finish. As ever, this wine is more floral-mineral than it is fruity, standing out for its ethereal personality in contradistinction with the blockier, more muscular Les Clos. Technically retired but very much a continuing presence at his eponymous domaine, Vincent Dauvissat—who forsook a career as a shepherd to become one of France's most celebrated vignerons—seemed just as delighted with his 2020s as he had been with his 2019s. Chiseled, concentrated and pungently mineral, there's no grower in the region who has done a better job of retaining all of Chablis's classical signatures in the warmer, sunnier vintages of the last decade. Once again, Dauvissat has produced some of the wines of the vintage, and they will be worth a special effort to seek out. Readers will remember that farming here is organic but without certification. The harvest is by hand, and the wines ferment in tank before racking to barrel with the lees (Raveneau's Chablis, by contrast, are racked to barrel more or less without their lees), spending a second winter in wood before bottling. A first bottling, destined for the American market, sees a light filtration, while a second bottling—some of which is sealed with wax, some of which sees a foil capsule—will come out."