2012 Domaine de Chantemerle Chablis L'Homme Mort 1er Cru

Apple, blossom, smooth glossy texture. Soft and rounded – just a little bit straightforward, perhaps. (RH)

Nectarine, honey and wild flowers all flesh out in the 2012 Chablis L'Homme Mort. The richest and most layered of the 2012s at the domaine, the Homme Mort shows off gorgeous texture and volume, both underpinned by persistent graphite and mineral-infused veins of structure. The generous, inviting finish makes it hard to resist a second taste.

Tasted from tank – whence it was slated for bottling in August, a month behind his two other wines – Boudin’s 2012 Chablis Homme Mort exhibits the most vivacity among his trio of vintage offerings, an impression reinforced by noticeable dissolved CO2, which he attributes to the cool spring and early summer, but is happy to see retained. (Of course, the level will diminish through filtering.) A maritime saline-alkaline alliance along with fusil notes, lemon oil, and pear and blueberry distillates signal a ripe but minerally diverse performance, and, for all of its friskiness, there is incipient richness here as well, culminating in a sustained, piquant, and refreshing finish. I would expect this to be worth following through at least 2018, but I’d plan to monitor it to see whether its sense of volatility increases post-bottling. Boudin’s tank-vinification and elevage – principally in unglamorous (and in summer often warm), above-ground tanks – conduces in the best instances to wines of surprising energy and complexity as well as longevity, yet with an early sense of pliable texture and positive evolution. When I visited in June, Boudin had assembled his young 2012s (with the exception of his one small lot of Homme Mort) into huge bottling tanks and cold-stabilized them. He reports major dropping of tartrates in the process, which might help explain some of the sense of softness that surprised me on tasting; though these 2012s – which, incidentally, were not chaptalized – still exhibit considerable vivacity. Both the generic Chablis and Fourchaume were due for almost immediate filtration and bottling. At one time, Boudin rendered special cuvees specific to his export agent, but claims that in the process he came to appreciate the importance of filtering and sulfuring only judiciously, so that he now treats all of his wines to the same light touch in those respects. A Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93