After years of believing there were seven Grand Cru vineyards in Chablis, it turns out that’s not entirely true. It appears there are eight. The one that got away – La Moutonne – sits between Vaudesir and Preuses and has largely been ignored by the wine books.
All two-and-a-bit hectares of this steep south-facing vineyard are wholly owned by Burgundy negociant Albert Bichot. The ruling body of the French appellation system, the INAO, ratified it as an official appellation in 1945 but an official decree was never published. Nothing like a bit of French bureaucracy to complicate things.
The vineyard gets its name from Cistercian monks at Pontigny Abbey, which owned the vineyard until 1791. Apparently the wine gets its name from these non-abstemious monks who claimed, “after drinking this wine, one jumps like a little sheep.â€
This is a little gem of a marketing tool – the forgotten Grand Cru. Most PRs would kill for such a USP. Come on Bichot.
Fudging the smudge pots
I’ve been telling all my wine students that grape growers in Chablis burn smudge pots/use aspersion systems to minimise spring frost damage. Well most growers haven’t for the past five vintages. Speaking to a viticulturalist at Bichot, it appears they have become redundant, as frosts are less common – global warming perhaps? In the eight Grand Cru vineyards, frost prevention methods are still used but in less prestigious vineyards, the cost of frost prevention isn’t justified.
