The Brocard 2007 Chablis Vaucoupin (half estate fruit) offers a quarry dust expression of chalk on the nose. Zesty lemon informs a bright, very straight palate and fruit pit bitterness stimulates yet, at the same time, reinforces an impression of relative austerity. One can’t fault this on sheer finishing intensity – reprising the theme of chalk – but it certainly remains tight and lean, and I wonder whether its relatively early bottling might have contributed to that. I can only recommend one revisit it in 2010. Enologist Nadine Gublin (also of Domaine Jacques Prieur) is now heading the team here, although I can’t claim that any change in style was noticeable to me after only one vintage, a vintage that certainly inherently contributed to the less than forthcoming nature of many of these wines, as well as to greater irregularity in quality than those of 2006. I found myself less satisfied with this year’s grand cru bottlings as a group – after being puzzled by how several of the 2006s showed at a comparable stage, too – than I was with those of ostensibly lesser pedigree. A majority of the acreage controlled by Brocard is now being farmed biodynamically, and Julien Brocard suggests he may soon set some sort of record for surface area under such a regimen.Imported by: Martine’s Wines, Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-0400