Louis Michel & Fils Vaillons 1er Cru 2023

Critical Acclaim: 92 pts Jasper Morris, 91 pts Robert Parker, 91 pts Burghound Winemaker's Tasting Notes: Varied aromas of roasted hazelnut, white-fleshed fruit, sweet spice and blond tobacco notes.  A delicious Premier Cru that creates a warming sensation in the mouth.

"Pale colour with some concentration. This has stayed entirely in white fruit but with more flesh than usual, though still a mineral backbone and a little salinity. Drink from 2027-2032. Tasted Jun 2024."- Jasper Morris

"Informed by deep soils, Michel’s 2023 Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons is one of the more fleshy, charming wines. Soaring from the glass with a bouquet of yellow fruit, pastries and clear honey, it’s full-bodied and lively, with tangy structuring acids a long, saline finish. As always, it offers immediate appeal, though under Diam closure, it shall age well. Guillaume Michel presides over this 25-hectare estate, with most of the land located in the historic part of Chablis. This estate has long been a reference point for tank-fermented and -matured Chablis, a style that the Michel family helped to popularize in the 1980s. Intense and tensile wines are the calling card here, pure and unadorned in style."- Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

"from vines between 35 and 50 years of age evenly divided between parcels of Mélinots, Châtains and Roncières. Pretty, airy and appealingly layered aromas include those of white pepper, citrus confit, acacia blossom and once again, plenty of mineral reduction character. Once again there is good richness to the finer but certainly not denser or more powerful medium-bodied flavors that flash an attractive stoniness on the bitter lemon-inflected finish. This is really quite pretty but it's not especially complex so a few years of keeping are in order."- Burghound

Varietal: Chardonnay.