The 2020 Chablis Grand Cru Vaudésir is charming and enveloping, wafting from the glass with aromas of crisp peach, pear, hazelnut, clear honey, white flowers and beeswax. Full-bodied, layered and satiny, with racy acids and a sensual, charming profile, it concludes with a long, saline finish.

Bursting with aromas of mandarin, peach, toasted nuts, mint, pastry cream and citrus blossom, the 2019 Chablis Grand Cru Vaudésir is full-bodied, layered and enveloping, with huge reserves of concentration and structuring dry extract. Long and penetrating, it's unusually tightly wound and will really reward bottle age.

Like the domaine's Vaillons, the 2017 Chablis Grand Cru Vaudésir was one of the first to be harvested, and while the resulting wine captures all the fragrant exuberance of the site, bursting with notes of orange rind, peach and lilac, it's quite tensile and tight-knit on the palate, with tangy acids and a mouthwatering finish. It will require a little patience, but it's promising.

Tasted blind at the Burgfest annual tasting, Droin's 2014 Chablis Grand Cru Vaudésir, bottled under DIAM 10, has a pleasant and perhaps commercially appealing bouquet, the yellow fruit lifted by judiciously used oak, hints of frangipane and orange sorbet emerging with time. The palate is well balanced with crisp acidity that renders this very lively and animated. I appreciate the sense of energy conveyed by this grand cru and the salinity that comes through on the uncompromising saline finish. Give this a couple of years in bottle and you should have a sensational Chablis on your hands.

The 2012 Chablis Grand Cru Vaudesir has an engaging, linear, flinty bouquet that unfurls nicely in the glass. The palate is silky smooth and harmonious on the entry with orange zest and lemon curd. This is a feminine, refined Chablis, supremely well-focused, a Chablis that is almost caressing on the finish. Drink now-2020. It was a pleasure to meet Benoit Drouin at his family’s tasting room close to the center of Chablis town (the winery, located on the outskirts was built in 1999.) This might be considered the Chablis equivalent of J.L. Chave in terms of intergenerational proprietorship. “The estate has been passed from father to son over 14 generations since 1620,” Drouin informed me as we descended the stairs to the tasting room. Indeed, the family have been deeply intertwined with the history of the region, Marcel Drouin having created the Fete des Vins de Chablis in the 1950s. The domaine presently encompasses 26 hectares of vines spread over 16 appellations, which includes a parcel in Vauleront that has just been bought and will debut in 2013. Benoit explained how he has a traditional approach in the vineyard. “We have an intelligent approach in the vineyard – nothing extreme,” explained Benoit, “and 80% of our time is spent working the soil. We commenced the harvest in 2012 on 19 September and the yields came in at around 40 hectoliters per hectare.” He is not convinced by biodynamic techniques. Rather, he is focused on enhancing the life in the soil and has seen a great difference since they began ploughing the soils in 1999. One other change is the pruning. Since 2002, they have lateral vines trained either side of the trunk that he says decreases vigor and enhances aeration, thereby reducing disease. Benoit’s policy is to pick early in order to capture the acidity and he chaptalizes a little to increase alcohol. He prefers this to picking later and then potentially having to acidify. The wines are matured in stainless steel with a maximum of around 15% barrel aging, using a mixture of around 5-year-old barrels. He is positive about the 2012 vintage that he found regular across the vineyards, unlike the 2013s. Importers: European Cellars, Charlotte, NC; tel. (704) 358-1665; and Fields, Morris & Verdin and Domaine Direct both in the UK.