2010 Chablis Les Preuses

The Dublere 2010 Chablis Preuses offers a surprisingly – not to mention stunningly – colorful and effusive display on nose and palate of pink grapefruit, Persian melon, lime, and pineapple. But amid this fruitiness are musky narcissus and peony as well as smoky, sweet-saline, iodine-tinged lobster shell reduction that liberate both the salivary glands and the imagination. The lees have reinforced a textural creaminess that by no means precludes tenderness, buoyancy (at exactly 13% alcohol) or consummate, sheer juicy refreshment. The finish here is truly stunning in its simultaneous expression of luscious fruit with a penetrating point of citricity and salty, chalky, peppery seemingly crystalline mineral impingements kaleidoscopically deployed. Plan to follow and give thanks for this beauty through 2025. I tasted with Blair Pethel (for more about whom consult my report from the Cote d’Or in issue 180) while passing through Beaune in mid-May, at which time his 2012 Chablis was still hard at fermentative labors. But the opportunity was not to be missed to catch-up in bottle with his two previous installments of Preuses, whose fruit from nearly 60-year-old vines he has been purchasing since 2007 and in whose farming he participates in the course of 4-5 annual visits. This bottling matures in older barriques for 6-7 months before further evolving and stabilizing over an extended period in tank. In case it has eluded any Chablis lovers out there – and I have good reason to believe that is the case – Domaine Dublere Preuses is (“consistently,” one can by now add) one of the most exciting half-dozen wines of the entire Chablis region. A Becky Wasserman Selection (various importers), Le Serbet; fax 011- 333-80-24-29-70