Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard Petit Chablis 2025

Jean-Marc Brocard's Petit Chablis comes from the Chablis vineyards, in northern Burgundy, around Préhy where the house has been established since 1973. The vines, around thirty years old, are planted on the clay-limestone plateaux of the Portlandian, limestones younger than the Kimmeridgian of Chablis, which give lively, approachable wines. The semi-continental climate, with harsh winters and temperate summers, ensures slow ripening of the Chardonnay and preserves the freshness and brightness of its fruit.

In the cellar, the harvest is moved by gravity, without pumping, through to the settling of the musts. Alcoholic fermentation is carried out with native yeasts, at a temperature regulated between 18 and 20 °C, then malolactic fermentation is completed. The wine is aged on the lees, entirely in stainless-steel tanks, for six months, to preserve the purity of fruit and liveliness typical of the appellation. It is bottled young to be enjoyed for its freshness.

This wine reveals notes of white flowers, acacia, lemon, grapefruit, mandarin, green apple, pear and chalk. The pale yellow colour with silvery glints heralds a floral nose that opens on a core of fresh citrus. The palate, gourmand and thirst-quenching, combines liveliness and roundness before a lemony, slightly chalky finish.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.