Chablis Valmur, Domaine François Raveneau 2006

This is aromatically fresher, finer and more elegant with a slightly austere and reserved nose of green fruit and oyster shell where the latter component also characterizes the delicious, serious and almost aggressively mineral flavors that culminate in a penetrating and explosive finish. A striking and austere wine with really beautiful acid/fruit/dry extract balance and huge length that doesn't seem to end. One of the most serious '06s of the vintage that is simply flat out great.

According to Raveneau, the airy exposure of its site inherently lends more elegance to his 2006 Chablis Valmur and less weight or opulence than the Blanchots. (The Valmur, too, originates with a high average age of vine.) Diverse flowers and herbal high tones in the nose usher in a remarkably polished, refined palate, one no less tactile in its mineral dimensions than the Blanchots, but more transparent, and with a lift that matches its wafting floral perfume and a purity of yellow plum and grapefruit that are seductively succulent. This unforgettably persistent, truly grand cru should dazzle for 12-15 years