2006 Chablis Bougros
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Tasting notes
The 2006 Chablis Bougros has peach, citrus zest and iris aromas which lead to a lush, rich, spice-tinged palate full of fruit and flowers, yet with an almost shimmering sense of chalky, saline, and iodine minerality, and considerable buoyancy to its finish. If this is suffering at all from its recent filtration, I can’t detect it. This should be worth holding for at least a dozen years. Didier Seguier has presided over a remarkable surge in quality at this address during the past decade in which Henriot has owned Fevre. The wines are now every bit as impressive as the estate’s vast and superbly-situated acreage, not to mention uncannily consistent in quality. Somehow, Fevre has acquired a reputation in some quarters simply for their widespread use of oak. In fact – just as at the region’s other top addresses, Dauvissat and Raveneau – the wood here is nearly always discreet, and Seguier is keen to finish the elevage on most of his wines in tank once he deems them to have spent long enough in barrel. Hand-harvesting and two sorting tables help insure quality of fruit, and Seguier’s insistence that botrytis was unproblematic for him in either 2006 or 2005 is ably supported by the gustatory evidence. Fermentation was relatively rapid, he relates, and the malo-lactic transformation not especially profound, due to the dominance of ripe, tartaric acid in the fruit. With one exception, the grand cru wines (all of which are vinified ca. 80% in barrel) had just been prepped for bottling (including cross-flow filtration) when I tasted them, but that did not prevent them from showing brilliantly. Importer: Henriot, Inc, New York, NY; tel. (212) 605-6706
Critic scores
Average Score
David Schildknecht, Vinous
Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
More reviews and scores
Good pale yellow-green color. Tangy nose offers ginger, licorice, white pepper and stone. Sappy and spicy if tightly wound; the wine's peach, spice and stone qualities reminded me a bit of a top gruner veltliner Smaragd. Offers lovely sweetness and density, and finishes with terrific length.
Creamy delicate citrus, a little white blossom. Then mineral power on the palate. Moderate concentration and good length. I’d like a little more fruit weight in the middle. (JH)
Pale, green-tinged color. Highly aromatic nose offers lime, menthol and powdered stone, plus a touch of gingery spice. Rich, fat and suave, with lovely ripe acidity framing the sweet peach flavor. Doesn't have the cut of a more classic year but this is nonetheless in a fairly delicate style. William Fevre owns half the surface of this grand cru (6 of 12 hectares), and winemaker Seguier notes that this wine has been stronger in recent years owing to earlier picking.
About the producer
Established in the late 1950s, William Fèvre was one of the leaders in Chablis’s renaissance. Today he crafts benchmark expressions of fine Chardonnay from some of the top vineyard sites in the region, working with many of the best Premier and Grand Cru vineyards.