2015 Chablis Butteaux

The 2015 Chablis Les Butteaux 1er Cru, which had been opened three hours earlier by Edouard Vocoret, has an attractive, quite intense nose of dried honey, wet wool and waxy aromas. The palate is well defined with a smooth, honeyed texture, although the flavor profile is more spicy than I recalled, with fine depth and a lovely bitter-edged finish. Excellent. Tasted at the domaine in Chablis.

The 2015 Chablis Butteaux 1er Cru has a very strong reductive element and pungent struck match/egg yolk aromas that mask terroir , at least at the moment. The palate is well balanced and intense - you can feel the energy in the mouth. But there is a lot of reduction, and the wine needs either a long decant or, preferably, at least three or four years in bottle. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting.

The 2015 Chablis Les Butteaux 1er Cru was actually ordered from the list at "Au Fil du Zinc" restaurant. What a fabulous Chablis! Oyster shell and slivers of white peach on the nose, a hint of orange pith developing later – the aromatics have wonderful definition. The palate is beautifully balanced with a slightly viscous texture, veins of white peach and apricot with an underlying mineralité to maintain tension. Wonderful!