Our first bottles: the 2023 vintage

What we did before

We have always vinified. What changed was where the wine went: until 2023, the bulk of our production went out in bulk for the négociant trade.

We had therefore never bottled a single bottle under our own label. Not for Petit Chablis, not for Chablis, not for Chablis Premier Cru Beauroy: everything went out in bulk or as must. The estate has always vinified and aged its wines; what it had not done until 2024 was put its own name on a bottle.

The question that kept coming back

We were asked over and over why grower-vinifiers did not make bottles. The answer was simple: we had never needed to, and we had everything it took to make our wine. But the question stayed, and it was a fair one.

There was a practical reason too: a wine that is not bottled has no bottle, and a bottle has a label, a glass and a table. In 2024 we decided to start. We bottled the 2023 vintage, which is still the only one we have bottled ourselves.

Three criteria, in that order

The moment to bottle is not fixed by a date. It depends on three factors. The first, and the most important, is the tasting: we never bottle a wine we judge, on the palate, not to be ready. That criterion comes before everything else.

The second is commercial demand. The third is the storage space available. In that order, and on the 2023 vintage alone.

Bottling happens at the end of August, just before harvest. It is also the moment when the cellar is emptied, cleaned and disinfected, so that all the harvest equipment is ready when the grapes arrive.

The four cuvées

What we bottled was our four cuvées: Petit Chablis, Chablis, Cuvée Élégance and Chablis Premier Cru Beauroy. Each keeps its own ageing regime, from racking to blending: the first two in stainless steel, the other two 90 % in tank and 10 % in new oak.

The vinification is the same for all of them: mechanical harvest, direct pressing, alcoholic fermentation held between 19 and 22 °C, malolactic fermentation by bacterial inoculation, ageing on fine lees from November to May, then fining, cold stabilisation and filtration before bottling.

Every wine we bottle is sold at the estate. The 2023 vintage remains the only one we have bottled: the cycle itself is set. We harvest in September, we age on the lees, and at the end of the summer the tasting tells us whether the wine is ready.