Tasting 40 years of Domaine de Chevalier white wines

Jane Anson enjoys an incredible vertical of Domaine de Chevalier white wines - read her report and and see full tasting notes for 20 vintages spanning 40 years.

China has long been more reticent about white wine than red, and white Bordeaux is hardly the one that anyone would bet on to change its mind.

But if anyone can take on the challenge, it’s Domaine de Chevalier.

Scroll down to see the wines and tasting notes

It’s one of only six estates in the Bordeaux region to be classified in both its red and white versions – named a Cru Classé de Graves in the 1959 ranking in both colours.

Its location on the western side of Pessac-Léognan, in a spot that has particularly pronounced day-night swings of temperature, is perfect for maintaining the freshness and acidity that is so sought after in great white wines.This was the first time that the estate had done a vertical like this anywhere in the world, showing 22 vintages spanning 40 years, all in magnum.

All the bottles had come from its own cellar, sent out to Shanghai just a few weeks before the tasting. Even the setting was exceptional – a century-old house on the tree-lined Xinhua-Lu street that borders the French Concession district, a former military residence that now houses Michelin-starred French restaurant Villa Lebec.

‘There are very few white wines globally that you could do this kind of 40-year vertical with,’ says Olivier Bernard, owner of Domaine de Chevalier since 1983.

‘Burgundy, the Mosel, Alsace and just a handful of other regions. People don’t always put Bordeaux on the list, but then this region is a contradiction in many ways. It’s on the 45th parallel, so a little too northern for red wines and a little too southern for white wines. It’s why it has such a strong personality of its own, and why its wines continue to fascinate’.

What makes its success in creating whites with ageability even more unlikely is that one of its main grapes is Sauvignon Blanc, not a variety that we associate with long ageing the way we do Chardonnay or Riesling.

‘Sauvignon Blanc on our soils is quite different,’ is how Bernard explains it. ‘And besides, the best wines are a reflection of place not grape variety. I don’t make a Sauvignon Blanc, I make a Pessac-Léognan. And more importantly than that, I make a Domaine de Chevalier’.

‘White Bordeaux, like red Bordeaux, is invariably a blend,’ says Bernard, ‘which gives complexity. Sauvignon Blanc has the structure and the acidity for ageing, and I think of it like Cabernet Sauvignon in red wine, while Sémillon gives the roundness and the sexiness. It’s like Merlot. For the first five years Sauvignon Blanc dominates, then the Sémillon comes in to play.’

It’s hard to think of five decades where more changes took place in Bordeaux winemaking than from the 1970s through to the 2010s.

In 1975 Domaine de Chevalier had 3ha of white grapes and today it has 7ha. Back in the 1970s, things were still extremely traditional, with little sorting of grapes after harvest, early picking dates and very little new oak.

The 1990s was perhaps the decade with the most changes, with later picking, softer pressing of the skins, better temperature control during fermentation, more carefully monitored use of barrels, with a clearer understanding of the impact of oxygen, and regular stirring of the lees to fatten up flavour without sacrificing freshness and focus (something that Domaine de Chevalier continued even when it slipped out of fashion). Since 2011 the whites have been closed with a Diam cork to ensure a more consistent closure and less risk of oxidative issues.

But some things have not changed. The wines are still barrel fermented, with around one third new oak. The blend remains at around 80% Sauvignon Blanc and 20% Sémillon. Harvesting always takes place over several trips through the vineyard with never more than 30% of the fruit picked at any one time.

‘It takes time for full ripeness to be achieved,’ says Bernard. ‘And great wine needs the right fruit at the right maturity, something that you can’t achieve by harvesting the entire crop in one go. Most years we take three weeks to go from earliest ripening Sauvignon Blanc on warm soils to latest ripening Semillon on the coldest soils.’

The result was an amazing vertical of wines. None were served blind because, as Bernard says, ‘I wanted people to concentrate on the wines themselves, not trying to work out which vintage they were’. And they were tasted from youngest to oldest, to maintain a sense of momentum and surprise as we approached 1975.

There was some bottle variation of course.

And many proved the classic point about Bordeaux that difficult vintages for red wines are often the best for the whites, largely because white grapes have less need for intense periods of water stress than reds.

But above all it proved that Domaine de Chevalier rewrites the rules about white Bordeaux. In a good vintage (in magnum at least) the white needs 10 years in bottle. In a great year it needs 20 years.

‘When you taste one or two vintages, you are seeing the story of the weather conditions,’ says Bernard at the end of the tasting. ‘But when you do 40 years it’s the story of a property and its philosophy. You get to the heart of its personality.’

Anson’s tasting notes for Domaine de Chevalier white wines

See also: Anson’s tasting of Domaine de Chevalier red wines from 2000 to 2017

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Haut-Médoc 2010 and 2014 panel tasting results