2012 Chablis Beauregard

Pale yellow-gold. Aromas of orange zest and spices are complicated by a trace of nutty lees. Plump, broad, spicy and sweet, showing fine-grained, open-knit flavors of very ripe peach and soft citrus fruits. Distinctly sweeter than the Cote de Jouan but the dusty, tactile finish displays precise notes of tangerine and minerals.

While most barrels of the Pattes Loup 2012 Chablis Beauregard were showing after-effects of recent malo-lactic completion and/or were still working through their last bit of residual sugar, it-s possible to offer a tentative account of this wine based on the portion that had completed its fermentation in new demi-muids (new wood being typically conducive to more rapid barrel-evolution). Polished and concentrated, this boasts ripe apple and pear tinged with citrus and chalk, a faint and attractive hint of flor putting me pleasantly in mind of the Jura. There is such substance here as to almost entirely resist any effects from the new wood (granting of course the relatively high surface-to-volume ratio of 600-liter casks), and the combination of incipient textural richness with the near-austerity of a tenacious chalk and stone undertone makes for a fascinating performance spine-tinglingly enlivened by ripe yet highly efficacious acids. I suspect this will prove worth following through at least 2020. Incidentally, a similar combination of mineral austerity with energy and tenacity is clearly going to characterize the corresponding Butteaux, none of the barrels of which had yet gone completely dry at the time of my visit. As I briefly narrated in Issue 191, young Thomas Pico farms a share of his family's vines organically, supplementing with a small amount of contract fruit over which he keeps a close watch. The juice is pressed - with generous aeration and minimal sulfuring - at the family's Domaine Bois d'Yver facility in Courgis, but Pico's spacious barrel cellar has, since vintage 2009, been under his parent's house near the center of Chablis. The seventh Domaine Pattes Loup harvest did not commence until September 25, 2012, but since production is small, Pico is well-poised to exercise patience and to carefully strategize picking according to his exacting ideals. The premier crus as well as the last of several otherwise identical lots of generic Chablis are characteristically bottled in March after the second winter, and nothing is done to hurry along his wines- evolution, as witness the majority of barrels from 2012 that were still finishing alcoholic fermentation at the time of my June visit, thus permitting me to offer useful tasting notes on only two of them. Conditions in Pico's cellar are very cold, which, taken together with long elevage, permits slow settling and stabilization, the generic Chablis receiving minimal filtration and the premier crus none whatsoever, a rare occurrence in this region. A Thomas Calder Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011-33-1-46-45-15-29