Chardonnay Wines

wines

The 2020 les Clos from Domaine Piuze is simply stunning. The nose delivers a kaleidoscopic blend of lemon, tart orange, pear, oyster shell, limestone minerality, paraffin, white flowers and a touch of new oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and again, shows stunning depth at the core, with great focus and grip, snappy acids, stunning backend mineral drive and a long, complex and perfectly balanced finish. Simply brilliant juice! (Drink between 2030 - 2080)John Gilman | 97 JGThe 2020 Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos is a deep and powerful wine, evocative of orange oil, ripe pear, white flowers, freshly baked bread and nutmeg. Full-bodied, layered and muscular, it’s broad-shouldered and concentrated, with lively acids and a long, mandarin-inflected finish.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 95 RPHere too there is a citrus confit character to the more floral suffused aromas of oyster shell, quinine and brine. There is again very good volume to the sappy and powerful larger-scaled flavors that terminate in a lemony, austere and highly persistent finish that isn’t quite as complex, at least not yet.Burghound | 91-94 BHThe 2020 Chablis Les Clos Grand Cru is very reduced on the nose, although there seems to be good concentration here and Piuze commented that this is nothing unusual. The palate is well balanced, quite primal, rich and slightly honeyed, leading to a powerful finish where I am just seeking a little more delineation. Let’s see how this turns out in bottle.Vinous Media | 90-92 VMRich, featuring peach, melon, earth and stone flavors. Shows an underlying steeliness, despite the generous profile, with fine balance and length. Drink now through 2025. 94 cases made, 25 cases imported.Wine Spectator | 92 WS

The 2022 Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses is also rather rich and textural this year, mingling notes of sweet orchard fruit and confit orange with notions of toasted nuts and buttery pastry. Medium to full-bodied, broad and fleshy, with lively acids and a saline finish, I’d expect this to take on more cut and tension by the time it’s bottled.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 93 RPThe 2022 Chablis Les Preuses Grand Cru has an elegant bouquet with apricot purée, yellow flowers and light Mirabelle aromas, with hints of crushed stone emerging with time. The palate is well-balanced, with a slightly viscous opening matched by a silver bead of acidity. The salinity comes through right on the finish. Excellent.Vinous Media | 93 VMA restrained nose grudgingly offers up a blend of green fruit, citrus, iodine, shellfish and a hint of quinine. There is again fine volume to the beautifully texture and more refined medium-bodied flavors that exude evident minerality on the equally long if not quite as complex finale. Lovely and I very much like the balance that should permit it to age gracefully.Burghound | 93 BH

Patrick Piuze’s 2020 les Preuses is every bit as beautiful as the les Clos in this vintage and I would like nothing more than to have the chance to compare the two side by side ten or twenty years down the road! The bouquet here is utterly classical in profile, delivering scents of lemon, pear, beeswax, a multi-faceted foundation of limestone minerality, spring flowers, vanillin oak and a bit of upper register smokiness. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, pure and precise, with a great core, a stunning mineral bath on the backend, zesty acids and laser-like focus on the very, very long, complex and seamless finish. Pure magic. (Drink between 2030 - 2080)John Gilman | 97 JGThe 2020 Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses wafts from the glass with aromas of oyster shell, citrus oil, crisp green apple, white currants and freshly baked bread, framed by a deft touch of reduction. Medium to full-bodied, ample and satiny, it’s taut and incisive, with a layered core of fruit, racy acids and a long, intensely mineral finish. It’s worth a special effort to seek out.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 96 RPAn elegant, pure and quite airy nose freely reveals its combination of white flowers, essence of poached pear, anise, mineral reduction and shellfish. The delicious and more refined if less powerful flavors possess a Zen-like sense of harmony on the mineral-driven, balanced and beautifully long finale. This will need to develop more depth with time in bottle but that is one of the strong points of a fine Preuses - it almost always develops well.Burghound | 92-95 BHThe 2020 Chablis Les Preuses Grand Cru is a little more expressive and delineated on the nose compared to the Les Clos at this stage, offering yellow plums mixed with light spicy scents and a touch of smoke. The palate is well balanced, wonderfully defined and powerful, but much more elegant than the Les Clos, with a gorgeous apricot-tinged finish and a peppery aftertaste. Superb.Vinous Media | 92-94 VMOpen in feel, yet there’s an inner tension that emerges as this builds to a long, mouthwatering finish. Balanced and lengthy, featuring prevalent apple, lemon, herb and stone flavors. Drink now through 2026. 110 cases made, 34 cases imported.Wine Spectator | 93 WS

The 2022 Chablis Grand Cru Blanchots is very promising, bursting with aromas of orange zest, citrus blossom, buttery pastry and fresh hazelnuts. Full-bodied, satiny and layered, it’s elegantly textural, with attractive mid-palate depth and purity.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 93 RPThe 2022 Chablis Blanchot Grand Cru is blessed with one of Piuze’s most enticing aromatics—gorgeous minty yellow plum mixed with jasmine and dried honey. The palate is well balanced with yellow plum (again), stem ginger, white peach and a hint of lemongrass. Very harmonious and persistent - this is an excellent Blanchot.Vinous Media | 93 VMSubtle if easily perceptible wood can be found on the airy and floral aromas of sea water, citrus and a hint of wet stone. The rich and solidly concentrated medium-bodied flavors exude an almost palpable minerality on the impressively long finale. This is notably more refined than the Bougros though it too could use better depth but with at least a decade of upside development potential, more will almost certainly develop.Burghound | 93 BHPale colour, a full and ripe nose, the white flowers are entwined with a little honeysuckle. Fresh enough on the palate with a fine white fruit thread, sinuous yet precise, and with great length. A fine and typical rendition of Blanchots. Drink from 2027-2037. Tasted: October 2023.Jasper Morris | 93 JM

(Chablis “Bougros”- Domaine Patrick Piuze) Bougros can sometimes be a bit more fruit-driven in personality out of the blocks than most other grand crus, but this is most emphatically not the case with Patrick Piuze’s version in 2020. The aromatic constellation is precise and minerally in personality, offering up scents of apple, pear, beeswax, a hint of crème patissière, citrus peel, oyster hell minerality, vanillin oak and a topnote of dried flowers. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and defined by its underlying soil, with a lovely core of perfectly ripe fruit, a fine girdle of acidity, lovely focus and grip and a long, nascently complex and beautifully balanced finish. (Drink between 2028-2080)John Gilman | 95 JGThe 2020 Chablis Grand Cru Bougros is ample and generous, wafting from the glass with aromas of pear, honeycomb, beeswax, white flowers and freshly baked bread. Full-bodied, satiny and layered, it's fleshy and enveloping, with a racy spine of acidity and a long, saline finish.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 94 RPThe 2020 Chablis Bougros Grand Cru has a well defined bouquet that offers fine mineralité and terroir expression, wet limestone and light smoky scents coming through. The palate is well balanced with a fine bead of acidity, veins of desiccated orange peel and mandarin, a little pepper and even a hint of rhubarb toward the finish. A wonderful Bougros.Vinous Media | 92-94 VMA rich, open-knit white, hallmarked by floral, yellow plum and peach aromas and flavors. Glides across the palate, ending with peach, spice and stony length. Drink now through 2027.Wine Spectator | 91 WS(Maison Patrick Piuze Chablis - Bougros Grand Cru White) Restrained if dense aromas are composed by notes of green fruit, oyster shell and lemon zest. The sleek, intense and delicious middle weight flavors are not quite as concentrated nor are they are refined but they do offer fine depth and persistence. This built-to-age effort should be approachable after only 4 to 5 years but reward a decade plus of cellaring. (Drink starting 2030)Burghound | 91-93 BH

Piuze’s 2022 Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos is a powerful, muscular wine, mingling notions of orange and mandarin with toasted nuts, dried white flowers and iodine in an incipiently complex bouquet. Full-bodied, broad and layered, with notable structuring dry extract and a long, resonant finish, it’s quintessential Les Clos.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 94 RP