Chablis: small, but fine - and still 100 per cent chardonnay!

Northern Burgundy is the domain of Chablis. The fresh, mineral-rich white wine that reflects the character of its chalky terroir. Chardonnay is the protagonist there in a magisterial solo performance that is so much more layered than you taste on the first glass. Our Burgundy professor Karel de Graaf tells you why. - TEXT KAREL DE GRAAF

Nowhere in the world can you find as many different terroirs as in Burgundy. And nowhere is terroir more defining than in the Chablis region. The physical distance of some 100 kilometres from this northernmost district of Burgundy to the northernmost tip of the Côte de Nuits is indicative of the Chablis region's distinct status. Here, for instance, you don't start with a regional appellation as in the rest of Burgundy, but are immediately at municipal level. Perhaps the reason why some people say they don't like Chardonnay - the only grape variety here - but do like Chablis. Here, chardonnay is called beaunois, by the way.

Oyster water

The further north you go from the Beaujolais, the younger the soil. Whereas the soil on which the grapes for the Crus du Beaujolais grow is more than 300 million years old. The soil in the Chablis area is not even half as old. The subtropical sea whose soil was Burgundy for a long time seems to have retreated here last. Yet the Chablis area should certainly not be considered Burgundy's drain.

Some 6 million years before the sea receded, there was a tiny comma-shaped oyster species that thrived here. This Exogyra virgula is still very much present in fossilised form - so much so that Chablis is also affectionately called oyster water. Since this type of soil is also found in southern England's Kimmeridge Bay, this period of the Late Jurassic was named after this bay. It is to the Kimmeridge soil, and thus to a tiny extinct animal, that Chablis owes its world fame.

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