hello everybody my name is jimmy smith and welcome to another session on understanding chablis and chardonnay for the wset level 3. as mentioned my name is jimmy i'm the founder and owner of west london wine school south london wine school and a wine bar called stretton wine house in london in the united kingdom this is part of our wine with jimmy youtube channel where we help you with preparing for wset exams this is very useful this one for the wset level three for in this we'll go through shabbly we'll go through the grape chardonnay and how that can be manufactured into different styles but then we'll also look at maps a google earth video of the shapley area and we'll then finish on a working written question as well so you're able to prepare yourself for the the examination for the wsct level three so here we go uh here is um a picture of chablis this is standing on the viewpoint just above one of the climates or one of the ludis which is le clow blonde show is just off to the left-hand side and to the right of that picture you'll be able to see the town of chablis so it's quite a auspicious day there with some quite menacing threatening clouds but it's a very good viewpoint looking south west on this very majestic and well-known grand cru of chablis okay so chablis in france is that northern tip of burgundy it is the yawn department named after the river yon and uh yeah it's very close to champagne it's actually sandwiched as we can see here sandwich between champagne this kind of yellowish area in the top excuse me i just need to get the arrow out just here so there's champagne sandwich there but also between the western parts of sorry the eastern parts of the loire so this is sansair it's actually quite close to pui and pui so it's uh that area that's nestled in between that as mentioned in the yeon department and there are many areas around chablis it's not the only place here um there is the grand or zero there is the chateau chatilione amongst many others as well but shabbly is the only one that you are required to know for your wsct level three um so chablis is the name of a town it is therefore the name of the wine that is produced from that town this is quite north the latitude here is very north and it is mainly continental here due to the latitude being very north it is a cool continental climate therefore the average temperatures during the growth season are below 16.5 degrees oops i put eggs there i think i can't fit it on but below 16.5 degrees on average continental because it is land locked so you will therefore find that this is not as influenced by the effects of the of the atlantic so just to give you an idea of that and we always talk through this there is the great westerly wind that does affect the um many parts of of western france and of course will affect many parts of northern france as well and that westerly wind bringing some moisture bringing some warmth as well is what comes across the atlantic this way of course it will affect many areas in the south and west places like bordeaux of course the loire but a lot of this heads up to the paris basin so it heads up this way okay so we tend to go this way um if it gets towards this way it tends to get pushed up as well because there is the massive central so you will get some weather patterns affecting burgundy so rainfall is possible rainfall can happen um throughout the year as well and as you will need to know in areas where rainfall is possible rainfall is an issue with producing things such as mildew but also things like rot later on in the season so it is important to cite your vineyards well with good aeration often on slopes this is very very important indeed with good canopy management allowing good air circulation so the things like mildew and rot don't take hold as much other ways around that of course is spraying and you will find this happening so this is spraying with sulfur so dusting with sulfur and also copper sulfate and lime the bordeaux mixture will be used to protect against the mildews spring frosts are also fairly dominating here in fact this is the big issue really of chablis the issue really is that chardonnay is early budding and if it's early buddhic budding this means of course it has to run the gauntlet of a longer spring and that means of course spring frosts can definitely affect the chardonnay in 2017 for instance a huge amount of shabbly crop was lost and of course this would be detrimental for the prices for us of course prices will tend to go up and remain quite pricey due to the lack of availability of chablis spring frosts of course occur at that early part of the year damaging or destroying buds and stopping their growth the embryonic growth of the bud this will therefore mean that the vine may be able to sort of rebound again rebound against this and grow more buds and more shoots but of course it will still reduce the overall yield and there are ways of combating against those spring frosts um we have talked through many of these in the past but there's it doesn't hurt to go through these again so let's pop this one here so first of all actually i'll do i'll do a number of arrows here there we go first of all an important way of combating it would be through planning so what we mean by this is if you are sighting a vineyard planting a vineyard it's important to site it on slopes um on hillsides because this will reduce the possibility of frost frost tends to settle more at the base of a slope and then towards a flatter land of the valley area so that is uh planning that's one area but if you have vineyards of course you'll have to combat frost in situ and that is around sprinkling so oops sprinkling there we go um that is also around um heaters and then wind machines okay there are many other little ways as well to to to help it but sprinkling is where um if an area is kind of riddled with frost on an annual basis then they will have quite extensive reservoirs nearby which and pumping stations which will allow for sprinkling and this process is where water is sprinkled onto the vine just before a frost is on set um and what will happen is that water which then forms around the bud will then change states as it freezes as it changes state from a liquid to a solid this is called aspersion and it will actually release latent heat into the bud keeping the bud warm and encapsulating and protecting it against the frost so therefore it's quite a useful method heaters are things like wood heaters which are not environmentally friendly or things like bougies which are like candle wax which is born and burnt within the vineyard expensive hard to maintain people are working on sociable hours in the middle of the morning doing this so more expensive but they do create a greenhouse effect which stops the frost from settling and then wind machines allows for good air circulation good convection and this stops the frost from settling but they tend to be very pricey initially and there can be problems with them um in maintaining them and so on so spring frosts um hail also is uh a bit of an issue too in this area uh hail will tend to um be localized be very damaging a way around around hail is to strategically think about where you source your grapes from this is not always possible of course because you may have just your own vines around your estate your domain um but if you are able to source like a negotiant and pick grapes for a number of farmers it's better to spread them out as much as possible so hail is very localized and that will damage a certain area so if you'll spread your vineyards then you'll have less of an effect but they do damage damaged vines they shred leaves and they can destroy vines if it's heavy enough and if it's later on a late summer hail then that will actually destroy the green grapes and split them leading to rot and there are many other ways around to protecting from hail there is netting which you may find there is a cannon that fires um this silver oxide stuff into the air and it's not great for the environment again but it it stops the hail from forming and it falls as rain amongst many others but there's early warning systems in place for these kind of things electrical reports and so on okay so that's struggling in france talking about its climate and its weather conditions shabbily um then this is a more close-up of the area to get your whereabouts first of all let's identify some key um key places here is the city of ausai which is the largest city in the area the river yon that i mentioned is what runs on the um let's just draw this on here for you so this runs on your western side of this so that's just down here here's the yawn okay eventually the sarin which is our river here the sarin starts his life off down towards the yardash and then runs up through here and it's the river which really is the main river of chablis it goes through chablis or just north of it and then comes up here and eventually will meet the yawn and empties into the yawn sarin meaning uh serene uh probably because it's quite a gentle river um so yeah so so chablis is based there um so it's close to orzair there are many vineyards around it i mentioned those as well um down in the bottom left of that picture saint berry famous for sauvignon blanc but you are just required to know about shabbly the area is really formed on limestone different types of limestone which uh specifically here are called kimeridian miles but i'll scribble this up at the top for you so we have limestone is the key uh keystone now this was covered at one point under a warm tropical ocean many millions of years ago 140 50 million years ago and all of the deposits from the marine life the um the sea urchins the oysters and so on all of that they would die and fall to the bottom and their bones which is full of calcium formed the soil and this is your limestone uh the specific epoch is chimeridian meridian and they're uh famous here for kim meridian miles and kimberly and mars um uh basically mile is like a more clay limestone there's also portlandian limestone in this in this area as well which is another epoch which is a bit younger okay so it's a really um high calcium soil very alkaline which produces exceedingly acidic grapes and chapli is very well known for producing these acidic styles um what else do we have here so the town of chablis is identified just there in that middle area um so here we go so there is the town of chablis okay um in red i'm going to show you that that's the grand cru area just there that's the famous grand cru slope there's only one grand cru but there are several different names for it so i'll put wrong crew up here for you that is the famous grand cru but we'll have a bit of a closer look at this in a second the slightly darker orange um which is identified dotted around so there's a nice slope just here there's also some down if phi there's some the other side of chablis this is our premiere crew locations okay which are the next best thing let's pop that down for you premiere crew and then the yellow um sort of areas which are then dotted around as well these are your shabbly and petty shabbly areas okay much larger area chablis and also petty um they're generally on flatter landscape they generally uh on are on portlandia limestone making nice fruity styles but still with that minerally shabbly but often not that complex whereas the premier and grand cru of course do become much more complex in their style generally um so the chablis hierarchy then just to reiterate that the ones in bold are the ones that are um highlighted in the level three textbook and that is grand cru premiere crew and chablis petty chablis is the expansive area which was created in the 1980s but it looks like they're not going to ask you things around that so the top of the tree is of course the grongkou um so gone crew is a very small production as you can see here it actually accounts for about 100 hectares out of the 5 000 so it's about two percent of shadley's total production there is only one grand crew but it has seven different names and we'll look at that in the next slide then there are the premiere crews and the premiere crews uh um dotted around on the next best sites uh there are a number of these um into the hundreds uh but these are very good examples of chablis as well and then there's generic chablis as i mentioned on the slightly flatter area and then finally at the bottom petty chablis so the difference really between these three at the top you need to know is that guancrew will have the optimum sights and that is on the best slopes and certainly here facing south west premier cruz will be on some south uh southeast and some southwest facing slopes um and then chablis will generally be on some slopes but normally flatter landscape making slightly simpler wines for instance you then have this area so this is at the town of chablis at the bottom left here and here is that clump of a hundred hectares of gronge crew chablis there is only one grand cru this whole yellow area is one big grand cru but there are seven plotted names that you can find your grapes in so this is bulgos pruss valdez granule valmur look low and blanche show um so these are all climates uh so let's scribble that down for you so you are sure what that means uh so let's pop that there so these are climate screen that's basically our unnamed sites named vineyards um so it is quite confusing for people because they see grand cru chablis and then lots of these different names and they think there are more than one but this is just one grand cru um where i've written climate that's the forest at the top you can see it in the picture here the picture is valdez and valmo which is this nice amphitheater area on steep slopes valdez here faces south west this whole kind of area generally faces that kind of southwest direction this way important here because it's so cold to get the optimum ripeness so you get really um good ripening levels here and in fact the chardonnay grown on grand cru can get ripe concentration still has the minerality behind it the salty briny character due to the soils and you can see in this picture um wonderful wonderful soils here because this is before the vines started flourishing this is early winter late winter sorry there is lovely chalky chalky soils to it and this is that um kim meridian mile soil which is classic in the area so you you actually find with grand cru chablis that the wine is quite powerful it's actually a little bit reminiscent of chardonnay from around the coat the bone and that is actually quite important they do actually mature these wines often in oak which is unusual for chablis but guan cru can be an oak with malolactic fermentation and leaves aging so you will find grand cru chablis being close in style to a coat to bone chardonnay maybe a bone maybe a monster or something like that but with a bit more of a leanness and a bit more of a minerality stony sort of briny character throughout the wine so i wanted to show you a a video just so you can get a good feel and this is a google earth 3d video a really good feel for the grand cru area and but some other local attractions as well so it's a two minute video only but it gives you an idea in 3d so we'll look at chablis generically the grand cru site and then locally nearby towards the mausoleum forest is an abbey called the abbey versi which in fact there is a wine region around a small wine region very very tiny um a new one but uh it's a very important abbey in the history of the area so here we are focusing on chablis the town um and we have identified in the background there all of the seven climates for your grand cru chablis we're just gonna focus on a couple of the famous ones here so these two have been left highlighted that's le chloe which tends to make the broadest masculine sort of mineral style that needs often quite a lot of time to develop but it is a very famous it's the largest of the climates of the grand cru um just at the bottom here was blonde show and we mentioned before in the distance is gone um but in the background there val d'azir which is probably the most revered of the climates but all of this is a south uh generally south west facing slopes some of them are a little bit more south than others some of them a little bit more southeast but southwest on that kim iridium mile which is limestone producing nice powerful chardonnays which will go in oak which will go through lees and malalactic creating complex textured briny salty wines which um are quite classic of the of the chablis one crew everywhere around it will be a mixture of premiere crews and um generic chablis and petty chablis just to finish on a nice little bit of history the gorgeous abbey of vazelay which is in just on the cusp of the forest as you head down towards bone and there it is famous and still standing after the um perils of the french revolution but wonderfully proud sitting on its hill um and uh yeah a good good spate of history behind that beautiful uh beautiful abbey great so that is your uh your chablis area let's go back to our presentation and let's move on to the grape growing of this area which i've already mentioned a fair bit about the best vineyards then just to reiterate this so you are sure will be found on the grand cru and then the premiere crew areas and these will generally be on nice steep slopes with good south facing aspects maybe south east southwest but generally south facing aspects that is to gain more warmth and that is to gain more ripening of the chardonnay grapes the basic village level that's aoc chablis is planted on generally the flatter area some of it will be on some hills but can be north facing or somewhere like east facing and that tends to make that really chalky minerally lean style of chablis the battle against frost and hale we discussed already at the early part of this presentation and the ways to combat that so um it's quite a useful thing to go back if you didn't catch that at the start of this presentation um chardonnay in um burgundy this is accounts for about half of the vineyard area so what i do need to do here is make you uh fully aware that it is only the grape of chablis so i need to scribble that down because this was actually taken from a burgundy uh presentation that i did um a hundred percent of chablis that is chardonnay okay um so uh but it's about half the vineyard area of burgundy so therefore the principal great variety of the region but we are talking about shadley the town of course um it's home in burgundy it was first mentioned in the 17th century there is a village called chardonnay which is found down in the makone um chardonnay is a remarkably adaptable grape variety is found in all climates and hence white is grown everywhere in the world and the most cultivated white grape variety today um so we will find it in cool conditions like this in chablis where it produces more leaner and minerally late style wines but you'll also find it in moderate climates down towards sort of central and southern france but also new world areas like um like australia like new zealand which is a bit cooler but to argentina everywhere grows a bit of chardonnay um it's early budding and i've mentioned that already and i'll underline that once again that is the issue with frost okay early budding varieties um will have to run the gauntlet of a longer spring which will mean that you may get frost damage uh because it is a longer time um through that early part of spring it's actually quite early ripening so that's why it does quite well at this high latitude and it's fairly productive hence why many people choose to work with it it's best on limestone we went through that limestone is alkaline so it has a very high ph and in comparison the vines have to work very hard for balance and so they produce quite high acidities to balance that so as a result you often get phs of around two and a half to three which is very acidic hence why the acidities of chardonnays are certainly in chardonnay are very very uh in chablis are very high um chardonnay is very clonally diverse a lot of diversity stems from what we call the dijon clones of burgundy i won't go into much detail about that because it's not mentioned too much in your books but there are many different types of chardonnay there are mendoza clones and you name it there are lots of them in the winemaking side of it wsct like you to understand that chardonnay is not an aromatic it's a non-aromatic grape variety so a lot of its flavor will come from the site and then what we do to it what the winemaker will do to it um you can do some whole bunch pressing so this is seen so if the grapes come in and they're hand harvested with stems intact and then are pressed on those stems and the juice is taken away this is seen as a way to protect the grapes um to keep it sturdy keep it structured and then to stop oxidation which could lead and there could be some oxidation from the grape if it is pulled off the stems on the vine so whole bunch pressing is a very common process which occurs specifically in france is very famous to protect against oxidation so it is an important process for keeping fresher juice malalactic fermentation and malalactic conversion so where a whole bunch pressing will happen in chablis malolactic fermentation will happen and it does happen now it's it's said in textbooks that it doesn't tend to happen so much in chablis and that's why you get all these green fresh characters you're gonna get these green fresh characters in chablis no matter what um it is inherent of its location its cool climate but um they do want to create a slightly more rounded style often so they will encourage malalactic fermentation the addition or introduction of lactic bacteria to feed on the small percentage of malic acid found naturally in the grape converting it to lactic acid and this creates a creamier character a bit of body a bit of texture so this will happen across most chardonnay places and it does happen a lot in chablis more than you think lee's aging as well now this is something which is uncommon in chablis you don't tend to find it too much apart from some premiere crews and a lot of the grand cru um it is seen that the lease which will release flavor and aroma monoproteins that's texture um will tend to overpower the delicacy of the non-aromatic chardonnay from chablis so you'll tend to find that that is not common but but it is one that's very debatable with chardonnay because if you go down to the cote d'or specifically the coke de bone a lot of lee's contact and fine leaves gives a texture and flavor an aromatic profile to chardonnay and of course this may happen as well as a bit of maturation um in oak so fermentation can occur in oak maturation can as well um it often people will simplify it saying shabbily has no oak and then the rest of burgundy does um it's not as easy as that chablis does tend to steer away from oak and that's certainly for generic chablis but old oak will be used as a vessel more than anything um but new oak is used by some producers some producers believe in new york to impart more power and more texture um so it can happen but it tends to be uncommon oak does tend to only be found for you guys for level three on the grand cru chablis in comparison to the rest of burgundy which is quite classic with oak fermentations and maturations and oxidation now there have been um issues in the past where these great fine burgundies including ronko chablis had not aged as well as they could and that is because they have not protected the juice or the wine enough from oxidation in the production side of it and this is something we should call premature oxidation or premox so this is something which they've worked very hard on in the last 15 to 20 years to eliminate oxidative notes through the wine making to help more long-lived chardonnays i do find that the exceptionally high acidities behind chablis top end chablis grand crusher means that it ages really well anyway it really kind of stays on a straight and narrow linear acidic path and develops over long periods of time and really to help keep it fresh sulfur dioxide will be used as well as an antioxidant and as an antiseptic it is used commonly to protect musts as you know so sulfur dioxide will be used in the protection of chablis as well as most chardonnay padme will here produce a dry high acidic mineral style wine minerals for you on your taste and cards or anything like wet stones things like flint but you know you could have brine or salty characteristics as well many people mention a lot of students say well how do you get salty briny notes when we're nowhere near the ocean remember the soils are formed over millions of years from marine life from the ocean so that is what can create that distinct briny mineral note which comes through the acidity and flavor profile there you know is there reach but uh please look at that of course in your own time so um a bit of a partial written question here so we can help you understand what may be asked of you when you come to your level three examination here is a domain la roche chablis goncou la blancho um la roche being one of the slightly more prominent producers stay to describe the climate of this wine so uh cool continental as you know temperatures below an average of 16.5 degrees celsius during the growth season with hot summers and cold winters you could add because you know about chablis you could add that rainfall can be an issue um but these are weather patterns it's generally asking about the the climate of the of the area what factors in the vineyard will equate to this being a complex wine so we're looking at complex and premium more than anything for four marks found on the most desired steep slopes facing south or south west on various limestone soils well suited to the production of premium grand cru that will get you the four marks easily easily okay we've mentioned that many times but yes it's about the steep south south west facing slopes on the beautiful limestone this wine is often medium to full body that's because it's a grand cru shabbly complex with primary secondary and tertiary flavors state ten explain three methods a winemaker can use to obtain this style so this is to add more body to add more complexity and to add more secondary tertiary characteristics first of all mallow lactic fermentation went through this we'll do it again a secondary fermentation through an inoculation with lactic bacteria normally introduced but can be natural that converts the natural malic acid about 20 percent of the grapes acidity into lactic acid this creates secondary flavors and on your tasting card you'll find this like dairy cream milk butter and imparts a bit of body into the wine as well it often can take the edge of the very acidic nature of shably too method two yeast autolysis that is the action of the yeast on the wine keeping the wine in contact with the fine leaves for an extended time often up to a year in any vessel but often oak maximizing contact through processes such as stirring the leaves or what's called baton arch this creates secondary flavors um like bread cream and dough but also please add here texture body that's what will add that kind of body making it more medium or full bodied very important to add that in at the bottom method three so this is to get your final three marks oak fermentation and or maturation uh the use of oak be new or old uh in bariko barrels will enable secondary flavors such as oak cedar vanilla and oxidative because it will be controlled oxidation coming through the barrel such as kernel that's nuttiness almond walnut may may develop because of that so here you have actually answered with those three methods why it's medium to full body that's malolactic and yeast autolysis complex with primary secondary tertiary um the secondary tertiary have been identified due through these processes as well you can mention primary here um just the fact that it is uh of course from those steep slopes but we've already covered that but that is it um once again the wine with jimmy youtube channel which you have found this video on has many other very useful videos which will gear you up for your level 3 examination please uh leave any comments um in the bottom we're very keen on that uh ask any questions as you wish um and get in touch with us on our social media channels which were at the bottom of every slide of this presentation that is at wine with jimmy that's me at west london wine which is my wine school in fulham london united kingdom south london wine which is in streatham and greenwich london united kingdom and my wine bar in streatham hill which is stratum wine house so please get in touch with any of those uh if you're in london please come and see us for a class for a glass or for a bottle it'll be brilliant to see you um thank you again for visiting the wine with jimmy channel bye