Patrick Piuze Terroir de Courgis Chablis 2022 750ml

Courgis is from a single vineyard on the left bank with clay topsoil on top of Kimmeridgian limestone bedrock. It’s typically the most weighty (think ripe, round fruit) of the Terroir wines. Fermented and aged in tank.

Patrick Piuze, a Montreal native, took the region by storm when he arrived over decade ago. Piuze works with purchased fruit, and his great relationships with the growers of Chablis have allowed him access to choice parcels in all of the great sites. As for technique, he is a maverick. While 90% of Chablis is machine-harvested, he harvests everything by hand, a paramount factor in the quality of his wines. While most cellars use a pneumatic press, he uses a vertical one because he likes the initial blast of oxygen for the wines in hopes of preventing pre-mox later, a way of thinking also espoused by Jean-Marc Roulot.

Patrick obsessively crafts no fewer than EIGHT different villages-level wines, each giving a distinctive expression of terroir. He touts them as the qualitative peers of his 1er Crus, and with good reason — they are extraordinary.