2020 Louis Michel Chablis Grand Cru “Les Clos”

Description

95   Jasper Morris
“Pale colour, with a fresh and restrained bouquet, waiting its turn. But the class is there. Pure white fruit in the inimitable Clos style. Monolithic in youth, this will become so much more expressive ten years from now. Everything is there and in perfect balance. You do not see the heat of the vintage.” (6/2022)

94   William Kelley for Wine Advocate
“The 2020 Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos is full-bodied, textural and muscular, evocative of citrus zest, crisp green apple, white flowers, freshly baked bread, almond paste and ripe peaches. Layered and concentrated, it’s the richest, broadest wine in the range, yet it remains nicely defined. Guillaume Michel presides over this important 22-hectare estate, which has long been the reference for tank-fermented and matured Chablis, a style that the Michel family did much to popularize in the 1980s. Intense and tensile wines are the calling card here, pure and unadorned in style and consistently high in quality. Indeed, I sometimes think that Louis Michel is the most underrated of Chablis’s larger domaines. The 2020 vintage is a real success here and likely the domaine’s best since 2017. Some cuvées will see a slightly longer than usual élevage due to glass shortages, but I suspect that will only enhance their quality.” (7/2021)

93   Allen Meadows for Burghound
“The nose instantly makes clear that this could be from nowhere else but Chablis with its aromas of iodine, oyster shell, brine, citrus zest and green apple. The intense, powerful and focused larger-scaled flavors possess terrific delineation while exhibiting strikingly good length on the chiseled, youthfully austere and lemony finish that is like rolling small rocks around in the mouth. Despite the excellent upside development potential, this is not so backward that it couldn’t be enjoyed after only a few years.” (10/2022)