WTN: 2012 Domaine William Fevre Chablis

I'm back from the Nantucket Wine Festival and ordered a half bottle of this wine at Oran Mor Restaurant the first evening with sautéed scallops with mushroom risotto (oyster and shitake mushrooms, leek, asparagus, and peas and the risotto was a spring-like pale green color.) The risotto was nice with a Gin Mist cocktail (Hendricks gin, cucumber, and mint.) The Chablis was served well chilled--crisp, well-balanced, with a backbone of flint or steel that I seek in Chablis. It was rather neutral as to fruit flavors--maybe closer to grapefruit or lemon than to apple. It paired nicely with the scallops and would be versatile with other shellfish or white fish. I liked it better as it warmed just a little from the initial temperature. My dessert was a delicious grapefruit/lemon posset (new term for me--a light ethereal custard) with shortbread cookies. The wine picked up on the grapefruit and lemon flavoring of the dessert but the custard has some sugar that clashed with the tart Chablis. About a glass of wine remained in the bottle so it was recorked to take back to the inn with me. It was nicely tart two days later, again grapefruit comes to mind.

[David M. Bueker]

I am enjoying the 2012 Fevre premier and grand crus. It's a very good vintage for them.

The Chablis was served well chilled--

I liked it better as it warmed just a little from the initial temperature.

Those two statements are enough to get me ranting. All over the world most restaurants serve the whites too cold and the reds too warm . Of the two, I prefer too cold because it is easier to warm up a glass unobtrusively whereas an excessively warm red requires an ice bucket.

For example the other day we went to a nice restaurant with tasty home cooking, tightly packed tables and a lively atmosphere but there was no room for an ice bucket when almost inevitably the Brouilly arrived at about 20°C (68°F).