2024 Jean-Paul & Benoit Droin - Chablis Les Clos Hommage a Louis (750ml)
This cuvée carries the name of Louis Droin, the family ancestor who purchased the parcel in Les Clos in 1920, and it stands as the flagship bottling from Domaine Jean-Paul & Benoît Droin, a family that has grown vines in Chablis since 1620. Benoît Droin, the fourteenth generation to run the estate, continues to use the Hommage à Louis name on the label as a tribute to that acquisition even as the domaine's full rights to the Les Clos designation have been reaffirmed by French wine authorities.
Les Clos is widely regarded as the grandest of Chablis's seven grand cru vineyards, a roughly hundred-hectare amphitheater of Kimmeridgian limestone facing south toward the town below. Droin farms about 1.4 hectares here, with vines averaging forty years old spread across several distinct sectors, from stonier, more eroded soils higher on the slope to deeper blue clay lower down. The wine is fermented and aged partly in oak barrels, roughly forty percent, which lends structure without overwhelming the site's natural intensity.
The wine offers a layered bouquet of white flowers, baking spice, and stone fruit, with undertones of smoke and crushed oyster shell. The palate is powerful and taut, built around a core of citrus and wet limestone that carries through a long, resonant finish.