Vincent Dauvissat
Vaillon Premier Cru
Chablis
2017

The producer

Rene Dauvissat is the “other” cult producer and godfather of Chablis (along with Francois Raveneau). Founded in 1931, Dauvissat-Camus is a traditional Domaine where the philosophy of winemaking has remained the same for decades. Vincent started helping his father in 1976 and later took over the running of the Domaine. With 11 hectares of vineyards, the Dauvissats have sections in two Grand Cru vineyards (Les Clos and Les Preuses) and four Premier Cru sites (Sechet, Vaillons, Montmains, and La Forest). La Forest (which is a section of the larger Montmains vineyard) is often considered to produce wines of Grand Cru quality level. Dauvissat also produce Chablis village and Petit Chablis.

Grapes are whole bunch pressed, fermentation is with indigenous yeast and is followed by spontaneous malolactic fermentation, after which the wines mature in 6-8 year old Nevers oak barrels for minimum a year. Wines can be bottled as Vincent Dauvissat or Domaine Dauvissat-Camus, the latter denotes wider family holdings farmed and made by Dauvissat.

This is an exceptional domain from which even the standard Chablis appellation is a sought-after commodity.

The wine

Vaillons is south-west of Chablis town on the western side of the Serein River, and has south-easterly aspect, thus producing more floral and delicate wines than those from the other side of the river. Dauvissat-Camus’ version has great balance of chalky austere power and floral finesse, with citrussy minerality. Following fermentation in stainless steel tank, the wine matures for 6-8 months in oak barrels of which a small percentage is usually new.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.