Having travelled down last Wednesday, we hit Chablis on Thursday afternoon. Our first visit was at Domaine de Genevres with Stephane Aufrere. He explained, as we tasted his 2004 wines, that Chablis for him is a special region. It has a cool climate with very deep, chalky soils. Ideal for making fresh, crisp wines with the tell tale flinty aromas and flavours associated with the region.

From there we headed into the town of Chablis and went to taste with Christian and Fabian Moreau. Both father and son have travelled widely to other parts of the world and Fabian has worked in New Zealand and California. They fully understand that resting on the reputation of Chablis will not provide long term security and that they have ferocious competition from all around the world for white wines made from their traditional grape, Chardonnay.

Domaine Moreau makes about 8000 cases of wine per year but they bottle and hand sell all of their production and most of it is of premier and grand cru status which commands the highest prices. They have consequently been able to invest in their winery and renovate much of their vineyards. A painstaking process as most of their vines are over 50 years of age. An old vineyard in South Africa would be regarded as anything over about 10 years old.