Chablis Clos Beru 2017

Chablis Clos Beru, biodynamic Chablis, unique walled vineyard, natural richness and style, rich, intense yet delicately oaked wine. Unfortunately for us, these wines get better and better and more and more people want to drink them so they keep running out! Layers of creamy richness, subtlety interwoven oak and mature stone fruits vie with minerals and ‘terroir’ nuances. The wine is a long way from its best, very intense now, it will reward cellaring and evolve more subtlety and depth. Of the new 2017 vintage. ‘Together with the almost perfect conditions that the 2017 vintage bestowed, which gave incredible energy, balance and potential for ageing and allowed for complete natural expression – we don’t aim to control the taste we want nature to express itself, and 2017 allowed us to do just that.’ Athenais de Beru.

Chateau de Beru is a 400 year old domaine hosting some of the best terroir in Chablis.

It is a magnificent estate, full of grandeur and history. The ornate rooms are filled with paintings and furniture that date back centuries. Staying there is like stepping back in time to pre-revolutionary France with 4 poster beds and stunning views across the walled vineyards and hills of Burgundy. For centuries the potential of the beautiful 17th century estate went unrealised until in the 1980s Count Eric de Beru, fuelled by his passion for wine replanted the vines including the unique walled vineyard, Clos Beru! When he became ill the vineyards were rented and the grapes sold to the cooperative until in 2004 his daughter Athenais took over and revolutionised the estate, finally realising its great potential. After a visit to Argentina and an encounter with coffee farmers using biodynamics to produce their beans, she returned home and despite some resistance convinced her parents that the future of their wine lay in biodynamic production. Athenais has been working the 15 hectares of vines with biodynamic methods since 2008 and since then the quality and purity of the wines has soared. She is blessed with fabulous Chablis terroir, calcareous-clay soils of the Kimmeridgien era (notably with deposits of fossilised oysters dating back 150 million years ago) at 300 metres above sea level. Only using natural methods including horse rather than tractors, can this hallowed ground be protected and maintained. The wines are pure and alive and marry intensity with immense finesse. Athénaïs has also joined the 'Femmes et Vins de Bourgogne' (Women and Wines of Burgundy) an association set up to enable talented female wine makers - who are unfortunately still scarce in Burgundy - to share their experience and passion. Recently she has started to ferment a very small amount of fruit with the skins in Amphorae to make tiny quantities of orange wines, watch this space, we will get some, although not much!