Petit-Chablis and beyond: new wines from Julien Baillard

"The Mole had been working very hard all morning..."

We're already getting stuck into spring cleaning. As soon as the tinsel has settled on Christmas and the New Year, it's time to take stock, tidy up and decide what's going to be new in 2016, and some new Chablis was one popular request we thought we should tackle without delay.

So what's new?

The first big addition to our list in this new year, then, is a flight of wines from Julien Baillard, an established grower in Burgundy but now, in a new move for the family, also bottling some of that lovely fruit in the heart of Chablis itself. From the bright and breezy Petit-Chablis to the rather grander premier crus (shortly to doff the cap in coming years to some grand cru wines), all the samples we tried convinced us that this was the combination of flinty freshness and generous body that we and our customers look for in a good Chablis. You can check out the Baillard wines here.

The Baillards of Chablis, past…

Here are the Baillard crew in 1969. Looks as though the harvest had them in good spirits.

…and present

And here's the latest generation, Elodie Servin, Julien Baillard's granddaughter. She makes the wine, and her partner Kevin takes care of marketing and distribution. A spot on TV5's food programme with Jean-Luc Petitrenaud can have done them no harm: