2022 Chablis - Domaine William Fevre

A year ago, on my last visit in spring 2024, the Serein River was a muddy torrent in flood. But in late June 2025 it was a trickle over bleached stones. I’ve never seen it so low. Nor could I go for my usual walk around the grand crus, as climbing up the steep slope to the little forest above Les Clos, (it looks like a small tuft of hair on someone’s rather bald head) was just not going to happen as the car thermometer read 38c. Domaine William Fevre has 4 separate parcels in Les Clos, all just under the forest, high up slope, facing from south to south west to more westerly. Perfect for the afternoon sun. But not today.

These days of course, Chablis demonstrates both the advantages and challenges of a warming climate. The good news is that the old vintages of underripe, green grapes are pretty much a nightmare of the past. No more tart, acidic wines that puckered your mouth and left you longing for a modicum of ripe fruit. The bad news is that the ever more extreme weather brings hailstorms that shred the grapes (& leaves) and late spring frosts that decimate the buds that now sprout 3 weeks earlier than they used to. Whereas an April frost twenty years ago would have met semi-dormant vines and hence done no harm, now it freezes off the new buds and your future crop is compromised. Hence the various methods used to combat frost – from helicopters for the very well-resourced to windmills amidst the vines or the more frequent drip lines which are not used for irrigation (which is illegal) but to encase the grapes in an igloo of ice which will freeze at 0c and insulate them from the -5c which would destroy them. The thousands of little candles (and burning haystacks) that you used to see flickering prettily on icy nights are now banned for environmental reasons.

And then as the ambient temperatures rise, there is the actual wine which can now almost make you nostalgic for a bit (just a bit) of that old acidity as ever warmer vintages loose tension and become sweeter, fatter and rounder. All very well, but too much ripeness masks that green fruited, chalky ‘oyster shell’ profile that real Chablis should have.  It’s a wine born of a certain cold-shouldered austerity, not an abundance of sweetness. Ot at least it was.

If you look at the weather statistics, you’d say that 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022 were historically very warm vintages and only 2021 was rotten, damp and relatively cold. So, are we now going to have to get used to Chablis that tastes more like the Cote de Beaune (or even warmer regions?) with alcohol levels creeping up and up. Chablis meets Napa?

Well, perhaps surprisingly, not in 2022. Not at all in fact. Warm vintage yes, but without those crazy heat spikes when the temperatures soar much over 30c.  Continual warmth without the melting peaks.  What this translates to in the bottle is a range (at Fevre) of wines that come in at 12.5% and just above.  All in all, perfect.

The 2022s have really nice balance: ripe fruit but not too much, good citrus acidity and that lovely chalky texture that coats your teeth and that you can almost lick off well after you have swallowed the wine. Tasting the range at Fevre is always interesting; of the 1e crus I particularly enjoyed the Fourchaume and Vaulourent (a sub-section next to Les Preuses grand cru) as well of course as the Montee de Tonnerre. all of which have minerality and depth in spades.

Heading up the price scale, you take your pick depending on your taste and budget. Though I always love the Bougros Cote de Bougerots bottling which sits at the very bottom of the vineyard on the steep slope down to the road with thin soil and a lot of rock, this year I also enjoyed the straight Bougros which is generally the cheapest and least renowned of the grand crus. It’s rounder, riper but still has tension – a wine that merits its grand cru label, but will I suspect drink earlier than its downslope stablemate which is packed with energy and almost austere minerality at this stage. And save you quite a lot of money. You can also drink it sooner whilst you wait a few years more for the more famous vineyards which I’d say would benefit hugely from 15 years or so in the cellar.

Really lovely wines, 2022 is such a good vintage, somehow taking enough of the sunshine but retaining all that classic Chablis texture and profile.

As for those many required years snoozing in the cellar, to prove the point, we drank a 2011 Les Clos from Fevre, not the greatest vintage but the greatest vineyard, a wine that you could guess as Chablis from a mere sniff, but with a deliciously creamy texture that I also find in Raveneau and Dauvissat (perhaps the triumvirate of top quality in Chablis) as well as that teeth-licking extract and minerality that lasts and lasts. For the record, the Raveneau’s Blanchots 2011 had almost exactly the same qualities (his plot sits just a stone’s throw across from Les Clos, though the hill starts to orient more to the east here).

I just hope it rains. Soon and hard.