Marie-Ange Robin had it made in Paris. She was a successful art dealer living a good life. Then her father died in 2015, leaving behind a domaine legendary in Chablis for its extraordinary old-vine vineyards, but a winery not necessarily known for quality.

She came home and changed everything.

Her father Guy had assembled the parcels in the 1950s and '60s, when other growers were abandoning Chablis after repeated killing frosts. He had the vision, refusing to pull up old vineyards—but not the touch in the cellar. 

Today, Robin's estate holds the second-largest collection of Grand Cru vineyards in Chablis. More importantly, 80% of their vines qualify as “vieilles vignes,” which are old vines that deliver complexity you can't fake or rush.

The Vaillons parcels sit in the lieux-dits Beugnons and Mélinots. The soil is Kimmeridgian millefeuille, which consists of layers of white clay and fossilized oysters laid down 150 million years ago. She hand-harvests the fruit in these climats and uses indigenous yeasts. The wine ages just under a year in barrel. There's no fining and no filtering, just the beautiful voice of the earth, transmitted through Chardonnay.

Why You'll Love It

• The End of An Era: When Marie-Ange bottles her final 2023 vintage, these wines become even more collectible. Her precious old-vine fruit is already going to smaller, vanguard producers we can’t yet name.
  

• Guy Robin is a go-to source for top wine-savvy restaurants on the West Coast like Le Pigeon and Canard in Portland, La Toque in Napa, and the Michelin 2-star Harbor House Inn in Mendocino County.
  

• Old-vine rarity and intensity, great vintage: 68-year-old vines don't yield much fruit, but what they produce has concentration, richness, and complexity that younger vines can't match. 2022 was a 95-point White Burgundy vintage, according to Wine Spectator.
  

• Chablis at its purest: This is what Chablis tasted like in the 1960s, before industrial farming and mass production. Incense, white pepper, that unmistakable mineral cut that made this region famous. It’s got the bracing, citrusy cut we crave, never besmirched by excessive oak. This kind of quality sells for TRIPLE in villages like Puligny and Chassagne.

How to Serve It

• Pull the cork at 50°F and serve in Burgundy stems.
  

• This wine will cruise for a decade, easy. But why wait? It's singing now, especially with a big plate of plump oysters, grilled shrimp, or anything involving butter and shellfish.
  

• 2026-2032 will reward your patience if you choose to cellar this wine. With time, notes like field mushroom and sea spray become more prominent; this is the magic or Kimmeridgian limestone, and it will make you an evangelist for the concept of terroir for life.