93pts Wine Advocate
Wafting from the glass with aromas of pear, orange blossom, white flowers, iodine and struck match, Michel’s 2021 Chablis Grand Cru Vaudsir is medium to full-bodied, glossy and ample, with bright acids, chalky structuring extract and a long, mouthwateringly mordant finish. Drink Date: 2025 – 2045

Guillaume Michel presides over this important 22-hectare estate, which has long been the reference for tank-fermented and -matured Chablis, a style that the Michel family did much to popularize in the 1980s. Intense and tensile wines are the calling card here, pure and unadorned in style and consistently high in quality. Indeed, as I’ve written before, I sometimes think that Louis Michel is the most underrated of Chablis’s larger domaines. The big news at this address is a very welcome shift to Diam closureswith the exception of the Vaulorent that was bottled earlier for reasons explained in the accompanying noteswhich should guarantee these wines’ graceful evolution in bottle. For this first year, Michel retained his usual 30 parts per million of free sulfites at bottling, which lends the wines a somewhat reductive profile out of the gates; but it isn’t overdone and I suspect that many readers, like me, will actually appreciate this quality. Those that don’t may want to consider a brief decant.

“Gourmand, Grand Cru Vaudsir nose reveals notes of rhubarb and acacia flower. Fine and elegant in the mouth, with buttery, brioche aromas, and a dominant hint of coconut.” –Domaine Louis Michel et Fils