Les Forets, Chablis Premier Cru, France

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The Verget 2006 Chablis Les Forets was fermented in concrete, supplemented by a small contingent of older barriques. Offering a fascinating combination of high-toned herbal essences with kelp, iodine, and crustacean suggestions of maritime minerality, it finishes with bright citricity and a persistence of fascinating herbal and mineral dimensions, but at least in its youth a certain lack of harmony. This impressively concentrated though not notably charming Chablis really deserves revisiting after a full year in bottle. Jean-Marie Guffens has gone back to vinifying Chablis at his facility in the Macon, immediately after pressing in Chablis (a residency required for appellation controlee) and a highly selective separation of the juice. Guffens was quite bullish on the 2006 vintage – although he characterizes it as “exotic” rather than “classic” – and could afford to be, after having sat out 2005, and given the early harvest in 2006. (It’s always harder, he points out, to get growers to collaborate in a vintage that demands risky restraint and late picking, as did 2007, when Guffens purchased fruit from only a single supplier and cru.) Even given early picking to retain acidity, says Guffens, the freshness and length that characterize the best of them would not have been possible save for two factors. Most important were the relatively low pH levels that characterized the 2006 fruit. But secondly, the levels of total acidity actually rose during fermentation (presumably a function of the production of succinic acid as a fermentative by-product, a phenomenon in many ripe Riesling vintages as well).Importer: A Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93