Christian Moreau Chablis Vaudesir Grand Cru 2008
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Wine Spectator
Supple and polished, yet there's no shortage of power. Lemon parfait, apple and butterscotch notes are underlined by a persistent mineral element that should emerge over time in the bottle. Terrific length. Almost drinkable now. Best from 2012 through 2030.
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Wine Enthusiast
A lovely wine that sings crisp Chardonnay, with the added complexity of a taut mineral character and richness from its ripe pear and melon flavors. It will age, its tight acidity needing 2–3 years to soften out.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Grapefruit and pineapple supply a luscious fundament to the Moreau 2008 Chablis Vaudesir, but this is also a seductively creamy as well as palpably dense cru, less intricate, refined, or elegant than the corresponding Blanchots, and with a toasty note from barrel running all the way through. Hints of chalk and cherry pit introduce a faint note of austerity to the finish. This wine from relatively young vines may well need more time than most of the wines in its collection to harmonize and find its voice. I’d want to revisit it before speculating about age-worthiness beyond a suggestion that it certainly would merit a half dozen years of attention.
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Christian Moreau, one of the leading figures in Chablis, is producing the wines he loves under his own name. Free of any personal involvement with the negociant company that his family founded and sold, with his son Fabien they founded Domaine Christian Moreau Pére et Fils in 2001 and set up their winemaking operation in the very heart of the Chablis country, at the foot of its famous Grands Cru vineyards.
The Domaine holdings are located in the best oriented parcels, and bottlings include Grand Crus Les Clos, Valmur, Vaudésir, Blanchot, and Les Clos des Hospices (a Monopole from the Moreau family), Premier Cru Vaillon, as well as Chablis AC, and some Petit Chablis. Every parcel is harvested by hand to bring out the very best from each vineyard. The Moreau's winemaking philosophy is non-interventionist at its core, entailing biodynamic practices aimed toward creating low-yield, high-quality harvests. Additionally, grapes for every wine from the Chablis AC to the Les Clos Grand Cru are hand-picked.
Fabien Moreau became the winemaker with the 2002 vintage, and is already producing remarkable results. With previous experience in New Zealand, Fabien is a visionary young winemaker who is a sincere adherent to the tenants of terroir. As such, the wines of Christian Moreau Pere et Fils are remarkable for their authenticity, distinctiveness, and exquisite quality.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
The source of the most racy, light and tactile, yet uniquely complex Chardonnay, Chablis, while considered part of Burgundy, actually reaches far past the most northern stretch of the Côte d’Or proper. Its vineyards cover hillsides surrounding the small village of Chablis about 100 miles north of Dijon, making it actually closer to Champagne than to Burgundy. Champagne and Chablis have a unique soil type in common called Kimmeridgian, which isn’t found anywhere else in the world except southern England. A 180 million year-old geologic formation of decomposed clay and limestone, containing tiny fossilized oyster shells, spans from the Dorset village of Kimmeridge in southern England all the way down through Champagne, and to the soils of Chablis. This soil type produces wines full of structure, austerity, minerality, salinity and finesse.
Chablis Grands Crus vineyards are all located at ideal elevations and exposition on the acclaimed Kimmeridgian soil, an ancient clay-limestone soil that lends intensity and finesse to its wines. The vineyards outside of Grands Crus are Premiers Crus, and outlying from those is Petit Chablis. Chablis Grand Cru, as well as most Premier Cru Chablis, can age for many years.