Verget Montee de Tonnerre, Chablis Premier Cru, France

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The 2006 Chablis Montee de Tonnerre was another Verget wine of this vintage that came out of barrel and went into tank after 8 months. Its combination of passion fruit, herbs, and honeydew melon as well as its overt chalkiness definitely put one in mind of Loire Sauvignon. A more savory sense of minerality is striving to emerge, and there are lovely hints of brown spices, but this remains very “cool-fruited” Chablis for the vintage. A long, refined yet somehow restrained finish completes the picture of a wine that will gain in stature when paired with the appropriate cuisine, as well as with time in bottle, and which should be worth following for at least 6-8 years. 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