Jean-Marc Brocard Domaine Sainte Claire Chablis Vieilles Vignes, Burgundy, France

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From organically cultivated grapes, the 2017 Chablis Vieilles Vignes Domaine Sainte Claire is much more aromatically reserved, exhibiting reticent hints of green apple and lemon. On the palate, it's deeper, richer and more concentrated, with more texture to temper its tangy acids and a saline finish. A little bottle age will bear dividends here.

The 2015 Chablis Vieilles Vignes Domaine Sainte Claire comes from vines tended biodynamically and is matured in stainless steel with the exception of 5% foudre. It has a fragrant, quite waxy bouquet with hints of yellow flower percolating through with time in the glass. The palate is fresh on the entry and quite saline in the mouth. It is modest in terms of complexity with quite a rich, lightly honeyed finish that just needs to convey more mineralité. While not quite as good as the 2014, this is still an interesting Chablis that should age well in bottle.

The 2014 Chablis Vieilles Vignes Domaine Sainte Claire has an attractive nose that to be honest, is little different from the regular bottling at this early stage. The palate is crisp on the entry with a touch of sour lemon, a keen line of acidity and perhaps just a little more persistence on the finish. Enjoy this over the next five or six years.

The 2013 Chablis Les Vieilles Vignes Domaine Sainte Claire has quite a deep color for such a young wine. The nose is simple and missing a little delineation, but it's clean. The palate is rounded on the entry with lightly honeyed fruit, moderate depth with a simple, easy-drinking finish. Drink over the next two or three years.

Tasted from tank, the Brocards’ 2012 Chablis Vieilles Vignes Domaine Sainte Claire (as usual, issuing from the Malantes and Les Pargues vineyards down-slope from the winery) delivers lemon zest, fusil oils, and chalk dust in the nose. There is some lees-enhanced textural richness to accompany the density here that wasn’t found in the corresponding “regular” Sainte Claire Chablis or the Petit Chablis (though granted, suspended matter from tank that’s going to get filtered-out is bound to be playing a role in my perception). Green herbs and lemon pip lend pungency and piquancy to a refreshing and impressively sustained finish in which some of the mineral elements intimated in the nose reemerge. Look for this to perform admirably through at least 2015. Julien Brocard reports unproblematic alcoholic fermentations and malo-lactic conversions in his 2012s, although the grand crus among them were not at a stage in elevage and assemblage that he felt permitted them to be assessed at the time of my June visit. The substantial subset of Brocard 2012 premier crus I tasted was determined by limitations of time; Brocard’s notion of wines that were at a perspicuous point in their elevage; and my choices of certain crus that I did not want to miss. Virtually all of the Brocard crus are now being farmed biodynamically and major inroads in that direction have been made with their village-level vineyards, too (most notably in the historical core of the family’s holdings that constitute the Domaine Sainte Claire). Julien Brocard is of the opinion that 2012 presented the sort of test in extremity that biodynamics at his domaine under-went as well in 2003, and that not only does this approach conduce to quality, but also to more regular yields. Yields from those vineyards that weren’t being biodynamically farmed, he reports, nosedived in both vintages while the others experienced only a small dip. Potential alcohol in 2012 was only slightly higher than in 2011, and nowadays most Brocard wines weigh-in well below 13%; but most of the sizeable share of 2011s I tasted – both the more exuberant among them, and some that were, for now at least, more restrained – share a disarming and delightful sense of levity. Vinificatory vessels at this address continue their nearly decade-long trend toward diversification, with larger barrels, full-fledged foudre and concrete eggs all supplementing the more prosaic stainless steel tanks and barriques. Incidentally, like Fevre, Brocard is now utilizing DIAM composite cork to stopper their wines, right up through grand cru. Various importers, including: Chambers & Chambers, San Francisco, CA; tel. (415) 642-5500, M.S. Walker, Sommerville, MA; tel. (617) 776-6700 and Verity Wine Partners, New York, NY; tel. (212) 683-8763