Vincent Dauvissat

Domaine Vincent Dauvissat makes particularly long-lived wines. A lasting impression of visiting the cellars is the plethora of little barrels – many being the traditional, small, 114 litre feuillettes. The wines, however, are not oaky at all because the average age of the barrels is about ten years.

With any oak flavours long since leached out, the purpose of these barrels is to allow the wines to repose gently on their lees. Furthermore, in their quest for subtlety, there is no bâtonnage (stirring up of the lees) which is employed by some Chablis producers. Farming 12 ha of vines, including almost 3 ha of grand crus, Vincent strongly believes that it is the endeavours in the vineyard that produce the best wines. The vineyards are ploughed and the domaine is, to all intents, organic but they don’t have the certification. “I’m not a militant person,” says Vincent, “I just work well in the vines: put simply, that is Chablis!” Now that his children, Etiennette and Ghislain, are working at the domaine, Vincent, a keen cyclist, may have more time to attack the rolling landscape of the Auxerrois on his bike! For about 35 vintages, Tanners imported René and Vincent Dauvissat’s wines under the ‘Dauvissat-Camus’ label but have recently switched to the main domaine one.