
Technical Details
- CountryFrance
- RegionBurgundy
- Sub-RegionChablis
- AppellationChablis Premier Cru
- VineyardLes Forêts
- Farming MethodOrganic Practices
- Alcohol12.5%
Gilles & Romain Collet Chablis Les Forêts Premier Cru 2021
Price drops to $34.95 per bottle when you purchase 6 or more bottles!
Astute First Bottlers like you may remember our Romain Collet Chablis offerings over the years – and today’s offer is the same great product, same unfathomable pricing, but with a new label on this exquisite Premier Cru Chablis!
With over 200 years of experience in Chablis, the Collet family knows a thing or two about producing world-class Chardonnay. This excellent expression of the heralded Premier Cru site of Les Forêts creates something delightfully different from your typical Chablisienne style, with more exotic, bright, green-fruited, and delicate characteristics that are truly sublime to experience!
The Collets broke free of the negociant model in 1979 and have spent the last five decades building a reputation for consistent excellence across their portfolio. After his father, Gilles, suffered a stroke in 2008, Romain Collet took over chief winemaking responsibilities at just 21 years of age. The winemaker quickly developed a reputation for precision, texture, and laser-like focus...essentially everything we look for in a killer Chablis. The family parcels extend across an impressive array of Chablis’ best sites: Les Clos, Valmur, Mont de Milieu, Montée de Tonnerre, Vaillons, Séchet, Les Pargues, and, Montmains. The family holdings are mostly farmed organically and biodynamically, and an overall preference for stainless steel winemaking and minimal new oak aging is utilized across the portfolio.
The Collet’s Les Forêts parcels are grown on Chablis’ famous Kimmeridgian limestone marl with rocky topsoil made of Portlandian limestone scree, marlstones, calcium carbonate-rich clay, and loam. The site sits between Montmains to the east and Butteaux to the west, with a dramatic slope and notably warmer, less windy weather than its neighboring Premier Crus. Hand harvesting, whole cluster pressing, and spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts take place, with 90% of the fermentation in cement tanks, and the remainder in 320-liter French oak barrels, for 11 months, finishing in steel for 3 more months.
Les Forêts 2021 vintage is bright and balanced, bursting with lively yellow and green fruits due to its warmer locale. Citrine notes of lemon zest and key lime lead things off, with a crisp and tart core of Granny Smith apples, accompanied by a floral and waxy freshness of honeysuckle, honeydew melon, and lemon peel. Salted sea breezes and pulverized oyster shells provide the backbone – and this is simply a treasure trove of Premier Cru Chablis. For just $34.95 when you get six makes this a steal – and these 2021 Chablis are drinking mighty fine right now. You’d do well to get a few for your next seafood meal – I’m planning on oysters at the coast with a 3-pack!
PAIRING IDEAS: Seafood is indeed the move here, but since we’re still in chilly months, I’m opting for a stew of white fish, clams, mussels, and calamari, rounded out in a tomato and fennel broth.
About the Producer
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