2020 Domaine Vincent Dauvissat 'Les Preuses' Grand Cru Chablis

Along with François Raveneau — his father René's brother-in-law — Domaine René et Vincent Dauvissat is one of the two undisputed reference points for great Chablis.

The family has estate-bottled under its own name since 1931, when Robert Dauvissat became one of the appellation's first domaine-bottlers in an era dominated by bulk wine. René built the reputation; Vincent joined in 1976 and took over in 1989, and the fourth generation, Ghislain and Étiennette, came aboard in 2013. Across roughly eleven hectares spanning every Chablis tier, Vincent has farmed biodynamically since around 2002, quietly and without seeking certification.

The cellar work is famously traditional: hand-harvested fruit, whole-bunch pressing with no destemming, and indigenous-yeast fermentation in tank, after which the wine is racked to 6-to-8-year-old oak barrels — never new — with its lees, spending a second winter in wood before bottling. The oak builds body and structure without imposing flavor; there's no lees stirring, and only the winter cold settles the wine. It's a recipe designed to let Kimmeridgian terroir speak.

If Les Clos is the muscular, broad-shouldered face of Dauvissat's Grand Crus, Les Preuses is its opposite — the floral, ethereal, finesse-driven counterpart, what Vincent has called a "silky pebble." This bottling comes from a single hectare of old vines planted in 1970, spread across different levels of the slope.

The 2020 leads with orange oil, white peach, jasmine and oyster shell over wet stone and struck flint; it's full-bodied, ample and layered, with terrific concentration reined in by racy acidity and a long, intensely mineral, saline finish. More floral-mineral than overtly fruity, it's a profound young wine built to be cellared for two decades or more.