What kind of wine is Chablis?

Dry white wine made entirely from Chardonnay, in Burgundy's northernmost outpost — much closer to Champagne than to Beaune. What sets it apart is the cool climate and the Kimmeridgian limestone soil, studded with fossilised oyster shells, which together give a wine that's lean, taut, high in acid and famously 'mineral' — flinty and oyster-shell fresh, usually with little or no oak. It's the antithesis of buttery, tropical New World Chardonnay.

What are the four levels of Chablis?

From the bottom: Petit Chablis (from higher, cooler plots, light and brisk), then straight Chablis (the workhorse, the classic style), Chablis Premier Cru (from named superior slopes, more depth and length), and Chablis Grand Cru (the summit — seven climats on one great slope). The higher you go, the richer and more age-worthy the wine, and the more likely it has seen some oak.

How many Chablis Grands Crus are there?

Seven, and they all sit shoulder to shoulder on a single southwest-facing slope above the town, on the right bank of the little river Serein: Blanchot, Bougros, Les Clos, Grenouilles, Preuses, Valmur and Vaudésir. Les Clos is the most celebrated. A well-known plot called La Moutonne straddles two of them and is treated as Grand Cru by custom. These are the richest, longest-lived Chablis of all.

Is Chablis oaked or unoaked?

Mostly unoaked, and that's the classic style — fermented and aged in stainless steel or old neutral vats to keep the wine crystalline and mineral. But it's a live debate: many top growers use some oak, especially for Premier and Grand Cru wines, to add breadth and ageing potential, favouring large old barrels over new ones so the wood whispers rather than shouts. Village Chablis is usually steel; the grand bottles often see restrained oak.

Chablis: Steel, Chalk & Oyster Shells

Here's the thing about Chablis: it barely feels like the rest of Burgundy at all. Drive north from Beaune and the golden slope falls away; you cross most of a hundred kilometres of farmland before the vines return, and by then you're nearly in Champagne. Cooler, greyer, harder country. And the wine it makes is Burgundy's great contrarian — Chardonnay stripped of every soft edge, all steel and salt and cold stone.

If the Côte de Beaune showed you Chardonnay as a warm embrace, Chablis is the cold, bracing morning that wakes you up. Same grape. Utterly different argument. And the reason is written in the dirt.

The oyster-shell secret

Everything about Chablis starts with what's under it. The best vineyards sit on Kimmeridgian limestone — a pale, marly soil laid down on an ancient tropical seabed and packed, quite literally, with the fossilised shells of tiny prehistoric oysters. Growers will hand you a chunk of it with the shells still visible. That seabed is the source of the wine's uncanny signature: a saline, flinty, oyster-shell tang that Chablis lovers chase and no other Chardonnay quite reproduces. Serve a real Chablis with a plate of actual oysters and the pairing feels almost like a family reunion.

The second force is the cold. This is one of the most northerly serious vineyards in France, which means racing, mouth-watering acidity — and a yearly gamble with spring frost. When the temperature drops in April, growers spray the buds with water that freezes into a protective shell of ice, or light heaters among the rows; the photos of an iced-over vineyard glittering at dawn are some of the most striking images in wine, and they're a working defence, not a spectacle.

Great Chablis tastes like it was grown in the sea it was once under — cold, saline, and lit from within by acidity.

The four rungs of Chablis

Chablis runs its own version of Burgundy's four-tier ladder, and it's easy to read.

Petit Chablis comes off higher, cooler plots on younger soils — light, brisk, an honest everyday aperitif.
Chablis is the workhorse and the archetype: unoaked, taut, green-apple-and-stone, the bottle most people picture. From a good grower it's one of the great-value serious whites in France.
Chablis Premier Cru climbs onto named superior slopes — Montée de Tonnerre, Fourchaume, Montmains and their neighbours — adding depth, length and the capacity to age.
Chablis Grand Cru is the summit, and here's the elegant part: there's just one of it.

Seven crus on one slope

All seven Grands Crus sit side by side on a single southwest-facing slope on the right bank of the little river Serein, gazing down over the town — Blanchot, Bougros, Les Clos, Grenouilles, Preuses, Valmur and Vaudésir, with the storied plot of La Moutonne straddling two of them and treated as Grand Cru by long custom. Les Clos is the one collectors revere most. These are the richest, most powerful Chablis of all, wines that trade the racy austerity of the village level for something broad, honeyed and built to age for a decade or two. One slope, seven names, and a masterclass in how a few metres of aspect change everything.

Oak or no oak — the live debate

Ask two Chablis growers about oak and you'll get an argument. The purist camp ferments and ages everything in stainless steel or old neutral vats, keeping the wine crystalline and letting the mineral speak — the definitive modern Chablis style. The traditional-Burgundian camp reaches for oak on the Premier and Grand Cru wines to add breadth and roundness, but almost always old, large barrels rather than shiny new ones, so the wood adds texture without a vanilla accent. Neither is wrong. It's simply the choice between Chablis as a scalpel and Chablis as a slightly warmer handshake — worth asking about at the cellar door.

The growers to know

Two houses anchor any education here. Domaine Raveneau is the cult name — tiny production, mostly raised in old wood, wines of profound depth that vanish on release and sell by allocation. It's the Chablis equivalent of the Côte de Nuits trophies: a bottle to hunt, not a door to knock on. At the other end of the access spectrum, Domaine William Fèvre is the great modern reference across the appellation, farming a remarkable spread of Grand Cru land and far easier to actually taste. Between the two you can read the whole spectrum of the place, from steel to subtle oak, village to Grand Cru.

Chablis is Burgundy's cold northern bookend. Now we swing to the opposite extreme — south, into warmer, gentler hills where the same two grapes make Burgundy that locals actually drink on a Tuesday, at prices that don't require an allocation. Part 6 heads to the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais, the value heart of the region.