Staff Pick

Chablis Vieilles Vignes, Daniel-Etienne Defaix - 2020

Name: Chablis Vieilles Vignes, Daniel-Etienne Defaix
Brand: Defaix
SKU: 22291
Price: 44.96 USD
Availability: InStock

Item # 22291 750mL

This Chablis is wonderfully concentrated, with a lively, fresh attack, followed by a sense of ripe fruit and hints of honey. The finish is incredibly long and mineral-driven. This Chablis comes from 50-year-old vines.

$44.96/ Single Bottle

$539.52 $485.57/ Case of 12

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Color

White

Vintage

2020

Country

France

Region

Burgundy

Sub-Region

Chablis

Producer

Defaix

Grape Variety

Chardonnay

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Staff Pick Notes

There are many heralded characters in Chablis (Raveneau, Alice et Olivier De Moor, and Vincent Dauvissat to name a few) but Daniel-Etienne Defaix intrigues me the most in just how meticulous and in-tune he seems to be. Defaix employs long aging before bottle release, extended lees contact, and indigenous yeast malolactic fermentation to extract as much honesty from the terroir as possible. His village-level Chablis has absolute heft to it, with 12 months on the lees and élevage for three years in stainless steel tanks with battonage taking place in the first two years. A compactly rich wine with the muscles of a bodybuilder, notes of blanched almonds, creamy butter, gala apples with a salinity that underlies this powerful wine. Defaix's mastery is on display in spades.

- JOS

Glossary

Burgundy

The range of wine styles offered in Burgundy rivals that of any other region. In Chablis, Chardonnay is left unoaked to produce lean, crisp, steely wines with incredible acidity - a far cry from the vanilla-oak bombs that so many consumers associate with this grape. Fans of rich, unctuous, and well-oaked Chardonnay will enjoy Chassagne-Montrachet, whose age-worthy offerings offer all the fatness of a California wine, yet retain a very Burgundian, mineral-driven core and great acidity....

Chardonnay

From Champagne to Chablis, it's hard (not to mention unpleasant) to avoid this famous white variety. During a huge popularity surge beginning in the late 1980s, Chardonnay plantings have increased dramatically -- not only in California's wine country, with which the variety is nearly synonymous, but also in Burgundy (its original, Old World home) and just about everywhere else in the winemaking world. It is a flexible, eager-to-please grape, responding well to just about anything a winemaker...