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Awards, Ratings & Reviews
95 / 100 Robert Parker The Wine Advocate
2022 Vintage | Tasted: Mar 2025 | When to drink: 2027 to 2050
94 / 100 Adrian van Velsen - vvWine.ch
2022 Vintage | Tasted: Jun 2024
93 - 95 / 100 Jasper Morris - Inside Burgundy
2022 Vintage | Tasted: Jun 2023
17.5 / 20 Jancis Robinson
2022 Vintage | Tasted: Jan 2024 | When to drink: 2027 to 2035
James Suckling
2022 Vintage | Tasted: Jul 2024
"This is showing peach, lemon-rind, hazelnut, pie-crust and spiced-apple aromas. It’s medium- to full-bodied with compact, concentrated and subtly nutty layers. Long and focused. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold."
About This Wine
This White Wine is described as Green and Flinty. It pairs well with Shellfish, Crab and Lobster. With shellfish, you can think of the wine as a squeeze of lemon.
Vaudésir wines tend to be softer and more elegant than other Grand Crus, with floral characters rounding out Chablis' iconic minerality. The vineyard covers just over 16 hectares (40 acres) of steep land above the Grenouilles Grand Cru site on the hill, just east of Preuses. The vineyard is shaped like an amphitheatre, and is cut through by a track known as the "Chemin des Vaudésirs", giving it a double orientation.
Half of its vines face due south, with the remainder facing southwest. This topography helps to distinguish Vaudésir from other vineyard sites, as the steep slopes provide some protection from northerly winds and vines instead benefit from good exposure to sunlight. Indeed, much like its southerly neighbour Valmur, the valley can become something of a heat trap in summer.
Another crucial factor in the Vaudésir terroir is the soils, which tend to be lighter than in the other Grand Cru climats. Although they are still based on the same Kimmeridgian subsoil that sits beneath the rest of the Grand Cru hill, soils in Vaudesir tend toward clay rather than limestone. The lower proportions of limestone here have led to a wine with a more refined minerality alongside good fruit richness.
About the Winery
Domaine William Fèvre is one of the more prestigious of the Chablis houses and, despite its relative youth, is reputed to produce some of the finest expressions of Chardonnay from the north of Burgundy. The domaine holdings cover a wide range of vineyards, including numerous grand and premier cru Chablis sites.
The Fèvre family has been in Chablis for 250 years, but the domaine itself wasn't established by William Fèvre until 1959. William Fèvre himself sold the eponymous business in 1998 to Maisons et Domaines Henriot. The domaine was acquired in 2022 (via a merger with Henriot) by luxury group Artémis Domaines. In 2023, it was reported that Artémis was in talks to hand over ownership of Fèvre to Domaines Barons de Rothschild Lafite. The move was formally announced in early 2024.
Today, Domaine William Fèvre owns around 76 hectares (190 acres) in Chablis, 15 hectares (37 acres) of which are in Grand Cru vineyards including Les Clos, Vaudésir, Bougros and Preuses. Historically, the wines were all aged in new oak, although more recently William Fèvre has changed to the use of barrels that are, on average, five years old, allowing for the quintessential Chablis freshness and minerality to shine through. Harvesting is all done by hand, with rigorous sorting for the premier and grand cru parcels.
Specifications
- Vintage: 2022
- Grape Variety: Chardonnay
- Region: Chablis Grand Cru Vaudesir / Chablis Grand Cru / Chablisien / Burgundy / France
- Classification: Grand Cru
- Vineyard / Geo info: Steep, amphitheatre-shaped land above Grenouilles; South/Southwest exposure; Clay-rich Kimmeridgian soil
- Alcohol: 13%
- Sweetness: Dry
- Ownership: Henriot family
- Closure: Cork
- Drinking Window: 2024-2045
