Product information

Domaine Bernard Defaix Chablis 2022

Chardonnay from France, Chablis, Burgundy

$74

$71ea in any 3+
$68ea in any 6+
Closure: Screw Cap

Description

This is very good. Defaix has given us a restrained, detailed expression of Chablis. Mineral with juicy fruit, citrus, and most importantly loads of personality. The fruit drive is impressive, balanced by lightning energy and zippy acid. The mouthfeel is superb, long and refined with great length. A cracking Chablis. Challenger for house Chardonnay! Tank fermenting and ageing Chardonnay can come through as a certain primary, unfinished rawness, particularly in the new world. Not so here. Development of Defaix’s Village Chablis has been handled with great touch. Just the right amount of oxygen has been introduced during ageing offering us a complete wine in bottle & under srewcap to boot.

Certified organic. Defaix’s Chablis villages is drawn from four parcels of mature, 30-plus-year-old vines situated around Milly and Poinchy, on the left bank of the Serein River. The wine was fermented wild and aged on fine lees for 10 months in glass-lined tanks.
🔥 HOT TIP – Drink it at 12-14ºC or even a bit warmer to get the most from it.

In stock

Check out all of the wines by Domaine Bernard Defaix

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

Following the extraordinary 2018 and 2019 vintages, and despite another early harvest, 2020 has seen a return to a style verging on the classical mould. Defaix explains that nothing arrived in the winery above 13.5 degrees, and the pHs looked closer to those of 2017 than the previous two years. Another point of contrast was the relatively high levels of malic acid, bringing taut backbone to what is otherwise a (coolly) ripe vintage. Defaix’s enthusiasm for the vintage is well-founded: at this address, the 2020s are filled with great intensity, energy and drive.

About Bernard Defaix

Always searching for better ways of doing things, for ways to improve despite their solid base. Fourth generation Defaix, brothers Didier and Sylvain, have managed their vineyards organically and sustainably for many years and are remain one of the few certified growers in Chablis (certified in 2012). The wines are pure, fresh and mineral, and the forward-thinking pair also bottle most of their wines under screwcap.

Domaine Bernard Defaix produce some wonderful Chablis, all at remarkably good prices—the rare confluence of very high quality and low prices. The Estate owns 27 ha of vineyards in Chablis, of which half are Premier Cru—the Domaine is the largest holder of the famed Côte de Lechet. Since 2002, Didier’s wife, Hélène Jaeger-Defaix, has brought her own family holdings to the partnership and these southern Burgundies are also made with the same respect from their organically tended plots throughout Rully, through to the cellar in Chablis.

In the Vineyard

Vineyard practices are organic and biodynamic. Seeking constant improvement, Defaix continues work replanting exhausted vines, managing vine disease and frost, and working to understand the soils and ecosystem.

In the Winery

Things are pretty simple. Wild ferments in a combination of tank and barrel depending on the vineyard with lees stirring to add body and complexity as necessary.

Where in the World is Bernard Defaix?

Click on a map to enlarge 🔎

Chablis Geology & Geography Explored

 

Where in the world does the magic happen?

8 Rue Jules Folliot, 89800 Chablis, France

Chablis
Burgundy
France

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