Staff Pick

Chablis Grand Cru "Les Grenouilles", Daniel-Etienne Defaix - 2012

Name: Chablis Grand Cru "Les Grenouilles", Daniel-Etienne Defaix
Brand: Defaix
SKU: 34882
Price: 159.96 USD
Availability: InStock

Item # 34882 750 mL

Daniel-Etienne Defaix continues his long family tradition as he maintains a domaine of 26 hectares planted exclusively to Chardonnay. The vines of this small grand cru site were planted in 1960. The wine is a luxurious, decadent treat. Unoaked.

$159.96/ Single Bottle

$959.76 $863.78/ Case of 6

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Color

White

Vintage

2012

Country

France

Region

Burgundy

Sub-Region

Chablis

Producer

Defaix

Grape Variety

Chardonnay

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Staff Pick Notes

Grenouilles sits in the low-lying terrain just beyond the banks of the Serein River at the center of a two-kilometer arc of land comprising Grand Cru Chablis. The south-facing land is bathed in generous light, which, despite the cool climate, facilitates an easy ripening of Chardonnay grapes. The resultant wines achieve an opulence rarely encountered at latitudes this far north. Daniel-Etienne Defaix is a fourteenth generation producer and among the most acclaimed in Chablis. His 2007 Grenouilles is laden with aromas of stone and orchard fruits, raw honey and mandarin peel. The estate eschews oak, even for their grand cru labels, but this wine has an unparalleled richness born of long lees aging and no fining or filtration. If wines were bed sheets, this would be 1,000 thread count Egyptian cotton.

- JAM

Glossary

Burgundy

The range of wine styles offered in Burgundy rivals that of any other region. In Chablis, Chardonnay is left unoaked to produce lean, crisp, steely wines with incredible acidity - a far cry from the vanilla-oak bombs that so many consumers associate with this grape. Fans of rich, unctuous, and well-oaked Chardonnay will enjoy Chassagne-Montrachet, whose age-worthy offerings offer all the fatness of a California wine, yet retain a very Burgundian, mineral-driven core and great acidity....

Chardonnay

From Champagne to Chablis, it's hard (not to mention unpleasant) to avoid this famous white variety. During a huge popularity surge beginning in the late 1980s, Chardonnay plantings have increased dramatically -- not only in California's wine country, with which the variety is nearly synonymous, but also in Burgundy (its original, Old World home) and just about everywhere else in the winemaking world. It is a flexible, eager-to-please grape, responding well to just about anything a winemaker...