The 2021 vintage in Chablis, Burgundy, was one of the most difficult in recent years, with substantial losses in the vineyards caused by harsh weather and spring frosts. In terms of quality, however, the harvest was very good.
In these autumn weeks of 2022, we are starting to see the first bottles of the 2021 Burgundy vintage leaving the cellars. The timing is right: consumers are asking to drink Burgundy and Chablis, and producers are responding with their latest releases.
Yet it seems only yesterday that we were reporting on the vineyard frosts that, in early April, were striking every corner of Burgundy so severely (see our photo report from a year and a half ago here). The season had in fact started very early, with the so-called "weeping of the vine" (the reawakening of the vine's growth cycle) already under way by mid-March. This made the damage from the abrupt change in the weather at the end of March and beginning of April all the worse.
In certain areas, such as Chablis and the whole Auxerrois, the loss of buds on the vines (and therefore of potential fruit) caused by the spring frosts reached as much as 80–90% of production.
But let's take a closer look at how the whole 2021 growing season unfolded.
The 2021 vintage in Chablis: weather and harvest
The start of the season, as the appellation's trade body also noted, was extremely difficult. Over the Easter weekend, at the end of March, a heatwave brought summer-like temperatures, forcing the vines into early budburst. On 6 April, however, a freezing polar air mass swept in from the north, sending temperatures down to -6°C in the valleys of Chablis. The damage was unavoidable, and the only remedies available were palliative.
The 2021 season then remained cool until early May, with the vines understandably struggling to resume their growth cycle after the April shock. Relief finally came in June, bringing the warmth needed to get the vines back on track with their growth cycle and encouraging flowering.
The damaged and decimated buds therefore produced only a few shoots and flowers, which nonetheless required extra work in the vineyard to tend them and bring them through.
Rain in July allowed the vines to develop their canopy, which was essential for the subsequent proper ripening of the bunches and the accumulation of sugars.
The final ripening phase, which began between late August and early September, progressed slowly but free from disease and humidity.
The 2021 harvest in Chablis, which began in the second half of September, proved very complex to manage: large differences in ripeness from valley to valley and from plot to plot, varying degrees of loss in the vineyard depending on exposure and parcel, and so on. Precision in both vineyard and cellar proved essential.
The 2021 vintage in Chablis: a cool vintage in the classic style
Analysing how the season unfolded and the factors that shaped the weather over the various months of the year, it is clear that the 2021 vintage in Chablis should be classed as a cool one – a "cool vintage".
While this, together with the early-spring losses in the vineyard, took a heavy toll on yields and on the quantity of fruit the vines produced, it is equally true that this was a vintage with a classic Chablis profile: a cool vintage also means acid tension, along with balanced, savoury aromatic profiles.
Tasting the new 2020–2021 Chablis vintages from Sébastien Christophe
Chablis 2021: the new vintage from Sébastien Christophe has arrived
In March we had the opportunity to taste cask samples of the 2021 Chablis wines from Sébastien Christophe, whom we import and distribute exclusively in Italy: the mineral tension, combined with very vibrant acidity and a citrusy, savoury profile, was already evident.
A few months on, the 2021 vintage of Sébastien Christophe's Chablis Vieilles Vignes, from a small plot planted in 1959, is now being released. The resilience of the old vines did much to maintain consistent quality, even though production fell sharply. The use of oak, always for only a proportion of the wine and employed for the Vieilles Vignes, gives this wine greater structure and makes it ready for even bold food pairings.
The acid tension, running right through the palate, dances with a structure that broadens on the mid-palate, allowing the wine's more complex character to burst forth: notes of broom opening up to touches of spice, a deeply citrus streak that gives way on the finish to riper sensations and candied citrus, with hints of saffron on the retronasal.
Sébastien Christophe's Chablis Vieilles Vignes 2021 is available from mid-October through the official distribution channels of Wine Terroir Import: send us an email or contact your local agent for orders and reservations!
