What can you tell me about Chablis Cuvee de la butte from France/ where in France? The region, soil, etc.?

Answer 1

Chablis comes from around the town of Chablis in northern Burgundy, France (although physically separate from the rest of the Burgundy wine region) and it is made from Chardonnay.

The best vineyards on on Kimmeridgean clay - a mix of limestone and clay and fossilized sea shells, the outer vineyards on a similar soil type called Portlandain which is not considered to give such good results.

This wine comes from the negotients Verget, and was grown in vineyards in Butteaux, which on my map looks as if its on the Kimmeridgean.

Answer 2

2004 Verget Chablis Cuvee de la Butte
Chablis, Burgundy, France
Chardonnay (a dry white table wine)
Review by Pierre Rovani
Wine Advocate #165 (Jun 2006)
Rating: 91 points
Drink 2006-2010
A boldly spicy wine, the medium-bodied 2004 Chablis Cuvee de la Butte is an intensely flavorful offering. Its medium-bodied, silky-textured personality is crammed with liquefied stones, sea shells, iodine, notes of citrus juices, and limestone. Fresh and complex, it also reveals a lengthy, seamless finish with hints of sage as well as rosemary. Drink it over the next 4 years.

Jean-Marie Guffens, who has been strongly criticized by his importers and distributors for the frank comments of his I’ve quoted in The Wine Advocate, is much more circumspect than he once was. His view of the hierarchy of Burgundy’s white wine regions in 2004 coincides with my findings, “Chablis did best because it had 15 extra days before harvest, then the Maconnais, and lastly the Cote d’Or where yields figures were in the stratosphere...2004 started terribly, except for a hugely successful flowering, then July and August were as bad as anything I’ve seen – huge rains. We were unquestionably saved by the nice weather we had in September and through October 10.” To Guffens, “The latest harvested hillside vineyards produced the finest wines.” He reported declassifying numerous batches of grapes from the water-logged flats, and having to do enormous sorting out of grapes affected by rot. Moreover, alcoholic (until March, 2006) and malo-lactic fermentations dragged on for months on end.