2013 Chablis Les Preuses
Estimated value
Buying options
Tasting notes
Bright, pale yellow-green. Idiosyncratic, slightly reduced nose offers powerful saline minerality, with ginger and quinine in the background and little sign of this bottling's typical floral character. Then wonderfully rich and fat in the mouth, with a thickness of texture rare for this grand cru in the early going. The strong marine character carries through on the palate, making this suave yet powerful wine tricky to taste today. I'd like to see this again in a few years, but it will probably need longer than that to express itself fully.
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
The 2013 Chablis Preuses stands out from the rest of this lineup for its extraordinary bouquet. I could stand in front of this barrel all day. Dried flowers, sage, slate, crushed rocks and lime race across the palate as this tense, pulsating Chablis captivates the senses with its extraordinary purity and finesse. Magnificent from the very first taste, the 2013 Preuses might also turn out to be one of the wines of the vintage. Sadly, yields are down 30%.
(I tasted this wine from a 1981 barrel!): Knockout nose melds musky ginger, quinine, caraway seed and elderflower, lifted by a violet topnote. Dense, layered and ineffably complex, conveying a powerful impression of saline dry extract to its explosive flavors of ginger, flowers, crushed warm stones and noble herbs. Outstanding density and sucrosite here; generous rather than austere, even if the remarkably vibrant, rocky finish and outstanding length promise a long and graceful evolution in bottle. This east/southeast-facing amphitheater vineyard is protected against the hottest afternoon sun, notes Dauvissat. This wine is frequently among my favorites in a given vintage, and that's certainly the case in 2013.