2015 - Chablis 1er Cru Montee de Tonnerre, Francois Raveneau

Very pale yellow with a faint green tinge. Extremely unevolved scents of minerals, mint and dusty stone, plus a whiff of pineapple in the background. A dense, sappy premier cru with noteworthy solidity and surprising acidity, but not particularly complex, at least in the early going. Has a sweetness to it, as well as strong underlying minerality, but will need time to express itself and expand in the bottle. My sample seemed to go back into a shell in the glass. Isabelle Raveneau noted that these vines were picked just a few days after a destructive hailstorm (and 100 millimeters of rain) on the night of August 31 but she added that her family had been planning to harvest the Montée de Tonnerre just a few days later than that--in contrast to some growers who were forced to bring in hail-affected grapes a solid week earlier than they had previously anticipated. This wine, made from a low yield of 35 hectoliters per hectare, may yet improve with aging but is tricky to assess today. (13.06% alcohol; 3.26 pH; 3.56 g/l total acidity)