Domaine Pinson Frères

There is a Rue Pinson in Chablis, dating back to an earlier generation when three Pinson brothers lived in identical houses in the street. This estate was formerly known as Domaine Louis Pinson, though the great man himself retired in 1983 having made some fabulous old-style wines. I remember visiting him around then and being very impressed with them. It was something of a shock when I visited again 25 years later to be greeted by his great- grand-daughter, Charlène. She works with her father, Laurent, and they also make a couple of négociant cuvées using the label Charlène & Laurent Pinson.

Everything is hand-picked, with sorting of the grapes both in the vineyard and at the winery. Fermentation is mostly in stainless steel using natural yeasts since 2011, then the 1er cru wines are transferred to barrel (mostly one to five years old) for the maturation process. 10% of Mont de Milieu and 20% of Les Clos are vinified in new wood before transfer to older barrels. These wines can show the barrel effect a little strongly in youth, but settle down with time in bottle.

These two vineyards are the flagship wines, though in some vintages their Forêt runs the Mont de Milieu close. The latter is the most powerful of their premiers crus, largely due to the site but also because of the percentage is vinified in oak. This wine typically has a touch more colour and exceptional density of fruit and structure. You can feel the sunshine, but the minerality of the soil nonetheless breaks through. The Pinsons have four plots of Les Clos in all: two lower down, one in the middle and one at the top which gives the liveliest expression of the vineyard. This is an enormously weighty wine which will repay a decade of keeping.