SommSelect subscribers know how much we love Chablis. What’s not to love? It is dazzling, mineral, age-worthy Chardonnay that is still, for the most part, priced well below what it is worth. In fact, aside from a few culty labels, Chablis is arguably the most affordable white wine “collectible” on the market today.
Today’s 2015 from Samuel Billaud is a perfect example: It marries old-vine fruit concentration with balancing freshness and that inimitable Chablis oyster shell/wet stone savor. It has a village-level designation, and a modest price to match, but the wine in the bottle so exceeds expectations it took about three seconds to purchase every bottle we could. But then I shouldn’t be surprised: Samuel Billaud may have only launched his own label in 2009, but he comes from one of the legendary wine families in Chablis. When he left the venerable Domaine Billaud-Simon, where he was the winemaker, he brought with him a lifetime of deep relationships—both with fellow vignerons and with the vineyards themselves. He hit the ground running in a way few “new” domaines can, and when you dig deeper into the vineyard sourcing for “Les Grands Terroirs,” you really appreciate what an utter steal this wine is. Simply put, this is serious Chablis from a great vintage—one to purchase by the case and know that it will wow you every time you crack a bottle.
Billaud acquired a new winery that once belonged to another rising-star producer, Stéphane Moreau-Naudet, and, in addition to his own vineyards, he’s able to purchase fruit from well-established growers. The result is a somewhat dizzying range of wines, with “Les Grands Terroirs” the perfect gateway to Billaud’s upper-tier stunners. In the glass, his 2015 is a deep straw-gold with flecks of green at the rim, offering up fresh, ripe aromas of yellow apple, white peach, citrus blossoms, wet stones, and crushed oyster shells. As you might expect from 2015, there’s an added level of opulence to the texture, but it doesn’t lose its trademark Chablisienne tension, finishing with a stony, salty kick. Give it 30 minutes of air and it’s a knockout right now: Serve it at 50 degrees in all-purpose white stems or even larger Burgundy stems next to a citrusy first-course salad this winter, or with some freshly caught fish next spring/summer. If you’re considering laying a few bottles down, it should continue to improve over the next 5-7 years. That’s a lot of wine for less than $30. Don’t miss it!