2002 Chablis Blanchots

Knockout soil-inflected nose combines lime oil, white flowers and white truffle, along with hints of marzipan and clove. Wonderfully ripe and lush, and spectacularly showy today. The compellingly sweet flavors of lemon, lime, pink grapefruit and talc really stain the palate. The great, mounting back end displays powerful minerality and great elegance. A wine like this may well shut down in bottle over the next couple of years.

Massive quantities of flowers are interspersed with red currants, earth, and apples in the nose of the superb 2002 Chablis Blanchots. Medium to full-boded, it coats the palate with oily waves of liquefied chalk, salt, minerals, and spice. This thick, immensely rich, satin-textured effort has massive depth, purity, and length. Anticipated maturity: 2008-2018. “2002 was the kind of vintage we’d love to see every year, it has excellent balance and loads of flesh,” said Bernard Raveneau. Harvest for the Raveneaus began the last week of September, and the grapes were “healthy, with between 4 and 4.5 grams of acidity (per liter), and ripe, there was no need to chaptalize.” The estate’s wines will be bottled in April and May, 2004. I have never tasted a line-up of Chablis with the sensual textures and stunning terroir-driven flavor profiles exhibited by Domaine Raveneau’s 2002s. These are magnificent wines that I would do almost anything to own, age, and drink... Bravo!

Massive quantities of flowers are interspersed with red currants, earth, and apples in the nose of the superb 2002 Chablis Blanchots. Medium to full-boded, it coats the palate with oily waves of liquefied chalk, salt, minerals, and spice. This thick, immensely rich, satin-textured effort has massive depth, purity, and length. Pierre Rovani, The Wine Advocate. Feb 2004