Domaine Gerard Duplessis Chablis

Domaine Gérard Duplessis is a family run cellar founded in 1895, today managed by Lilian Duplessis. Located in the heart of the Chablis’s region it has 9 ha divided on 8 different appellations. Every vineyard is worked in accordance to organic farming since 2007 and achieved certification in 2013 hence all the wines now from then are labelled as such. In fact he now farms biodynamically. All vineyards used for village, Premier Cru, and Grand Cru wines are Kimmeridgian limestone, with the Petit Chablis on Portlandian limestone, making the village Chablis a seriously good village style. As mentioned above the domaine is Certified organic, quite the achievement in such a marginal climate as Chablis. Owning such superb old vineyards (now organically farmed) is one of the key’s to the quality of wines produced by the Domaine, particularly in the ever warming climate of Chablis. What was interesting when tasting Domaine Gerard Duplessis’s wines in 2019  was despite these warmer conditions how wonderful the 2018 wines were. I was confused about how fresh, tight and precise they felt. Lilian explained that when you have the benefit of old vines their ‘experience’ as he put it helps to negate the warmer weather, they are not so easily influenced by these factors. With some plots up to 80 years old with even his Petit Chablis a vine average of 30 years old it’s evident in the wines.