($83, Dreyfus, Ashby & Company): Without doubt, Vaudésir is one of the two top Grand Cru vineyards in Chablis.  (The other is Les Clos.)  In the hands of a talented producer, such as Drouhin who owns a portion of the vineyard, the wine from Vaudésir delivers a near-magical combination of weight and flinty elegance.  Drouhin’s 2013 Vaudésir, initially very tight and closed with the barest hint of stoniness, took a full day opened and left in the refrigerator for its weight and beauty to appear.  Then signs of greatness emerged with flinty nuances and a power that seemingly arrived out of nowhere.  But the power was restrained, like a tightly wound coil, rather than manifested by heaviness.  My experience with Drouhin’s Vaudésir is that it develops marvelous complexity with bottle age:  I drank a 1988 with dinner earlier this year that was perhaps the best wines from Chablis I’ve ever had.  So not only is there no rush with Drouhin’s 2013 Vaudésir, I would wait at least five years before pulling the cork.
94 Michael Apstein Sep 29, 2015