Chablis Grand Cru, Les Vaudésirs, Domaine Long Depaquit, 2022
Chablis Grand Cru, Les Vaudésirs, Domaine Long Depaquit, 2022
- 75cl
- 13%
- White Still
- Chardonnay
- Organic
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Optimal drinking window: 2026 - 2045
Within the house of Albert Bichot, Domaine Long-Depaquit is well known for its careful selection of Chablis styles.
At the heart of the Grand Cru area, the Vaudésirs valley is a textbook example of the geology and history of the Chablis appellation. The vineyards are planted with vines over 40 years old on south-facing steep slopes where the optimal amount of sunshine is guaranteed. The Kimmeridgian clay in the soil comes into play here, providing a wine with a pronounced minerality.
Château Long-Depaquit sits at the centre of the village of Chablis, surrounded by a rose garden. The approach is to limit grape yields in the vineyard, intervention and oak in the winery to develop wines with purity and focus on expression of the individual plots. The winery was modernised in 2014, leading to reduced environmental impact and a step up in quality.
What the critics say:
"Almost warmer than Les Clos, and at the top it is much riper than at the bottom, with a 40–50% slope. Picked all together. Rich aroma. It is seductive and ripe up-front, and super-intense, but not broad. Quite the opposite. Incredibly focused and powerful on the finish as if squeezed into a tube. Exceedingly long and very salty. This really needs time. Probably the richest, but also one of the best, 2022 Vaudésir that I tasted. 2028–40."
"Sitting up next to Moutonne, this is just about as much of a dynamo. Spice drawer and apple cobbler dominate from start to finish. There is lots of mid-palate concentration and just enough balancing acidity. All of the vines sit on the south-facing, or l'endroit—as the locals call it, side of the valley."
Les Vaudésirs sits on the famous Kimmeridgian limestone that defines Chablis Grand Cru — a band of ancient marine sediment packed with fossilised oysters and compressed chalk that gives the wines their signature mineral spine. The Grand Cru slope faces broadly south to south-west, catching the afternoon sun to ripen the fruit while the altitude and the cool Serein valley air preserve acidity. Vaudésirs itself benefits from slightly more shelter than some of its neighbours, which contributes a touch of extra richness without any loss of precision. It is this combination of warmth, elevation, and ancient marine soils that produces whites of such striking tension and length.
Chablis Grand Cru is the pinnacle of the appellation, comprising just seven named climat totalling around 100 hectares on a single hillside north of the town. The rules require 100% Chardonnay, and the best examples are aged without new oak or with very restrained use of it, allowing the soil rather than the barrel to do the talking. Compared to Côte de Beaune Chardonnay, Grand Cru Chablis is a different creature altogether: leaner, more saline, more mineral in its youth, and built to age for a decade or more. The seven Grands Crus — Blanchot, Bougros, Grenouilles, Les Clos, Preuses, Valmur, and Vaudésirs — each have their own character, but all share that irreducible quality of tasting like nowhere else on earth.
The 2022 growing season in Burgundy began with a worryingly dry spring that had vignerons checking soil moisture levels weekly, followed by a summer that alternated between intense heat and welcome rainfall. The vines handled the stress remarkably well, producing smaller berries with concentrated flavours, though yields dropped significantly across both the Côte d'Or and Chablis. Harvest began earlier than usual, with many producers picking in late August under bright skies.
What emerged from the cellars shows a vintage of surprising finesse given the challenging conditions. The Pinot Noirs display vivid fruit and firm tannins without the jammy weight you might expect from a hot year, whilst the Chardonnays retained their mineral backbone alongside ripe stone fruit flavours. We're finding the village-level wines particularly compelling right now, drinking beautifully with just a year or two of bottle age, though the premier and grand crus will reward patience until the late 2020s.
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