Robe — Green-gold with a steely, almost silver light
lemon
oyster shell
wet stone
green apple
white flowers
Palate
Steely and saline, Chardonnay stripped to bone and stone
Ageing
3–10 years; grands crus 10–25
Serving
10–12 °C, cool rather than iced
Chablis is Chardonnay at its most austere, grown on Kimmeridgian marl seeded with fossil oyster shells — the tiny Exogyra virgula — which the wine, by some persistent alchemy of soil and suggestion, seems to remember: oyster shell, wet stone, a saline snap. The monks of Pontigny planted the slopes in the Middle Ages, and the wine travelled down the Yonne to slake medieval Paris.
The classic style refuses ornament: green-gold, steel and stone, little or no new oak, the fruit held at arm's length. Above the town, the seven grands crus share one south-facing slope over the river Serein, where extra sun rounds the austerity without dissolving it. Chablis remains the world's reference for what Chardonnay says when nothing else is speaking.