Now you may, or may not know…but I am a very devout red winer. But a white burgundy can usually lure me to the whiter side of wine =) Most notably the burgundian region of Chablis. Now for the sake of not leaving anyone behind and at the risk of patronizing some of you more knowledgeable wineaux out there, let me tell ya what the word on the street is about Chablis.
For you americans reading this, please do not associate Chablis with the ‘horrible-headache-giving’ jug wine sold on the bottom shelf of the wine section in your local grocery store. [Insert cringe] Chablis is the northern most wine producing region of Burgundy, actually quite far from the rest of Burgundy and closer to the Champagne region.(see map below from www.gourmandise.com.au)
Burgundy produces only Chardonnay for it’s white varietal (with the exception of a small percentage of the varietal Aligoté) and for its red varietal only Pinot Noir (with the exception of Gamay aka Passetoutgrains). Chablis’ grapes are almost all Chardonnay and BOY are they good at making it. The flavor profiles for the Chardonnay from this region are not inline with your typical ‘french oaked Chardonnay’ as they tend not to age the wine in oak barrels, but rather stainless steel tanks. That being said, Chablis is usually associated with words like ‘flinty’, ‘mineral’, ‘gunflint’, ‘slate’ and ‘steel’ with notes of ‘white flowers’ and ‘citrus’, ‘acidic’, ‘fresh fruit’ and ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter’ =)
For those of you who are tired of Chardonnay, please do not overlook the Chardonnay from Chablis…it is somewhat of a nectar of the gods.
So with this small background, let’s look at the 2007 Chablis I tasted (8/05/09) from Domaine Jean-Claude Martin.
Please don’t give me lip about the water stains on my glass, I ran out of vinegar to clean them properly
The color is lighter than your typical yellow chardonnay. On the nose, I definitely picked up on some ‘pineapple in a can’ (remember ‘mineral’ is a typical scent/flavor for Chablis as well as the ‘citrus fruit’). This wine had a great balance and the length of the flavor lasted for minutes! Loved, Loved, Loved this wine! But then again, Chablis rarely lets me down.