It was a hot, dry year in Chablis, but thanks to a wet June and some late-season rain, the 2022 Chablis vintage is perfectly pleasant. The wines are fresh and pure with moderate and resolutely classic alcohol levels. The Kimmeridgian limestone-derived Chablis typicity is just about everywhere in this vintage: there's lots of that dry, chalky texture with those signature aromas of oyster shell and crushed stones. 

Some of this vintage’s riper Premier and Grand Crus do display enough mid-palate plumpness to smudge the edges of über-crispness, but the wines are still delicious. As Virginie Moreau of Domaine Moreau-Naudet said, "It's a massive palate of fruit."

Here’s what you need to know about this highly approachable yet potentially age-worthy and generally very enjoyable vintage:

There’s lots of good news for drinkers and producers

• These are fresh, lively wines for the most part. Didier Picq of Domaine Gilbert Picq said there was zero rot. Julien Brocard pointed out that the wines are in the 12-13% alcohol range, while Patrick Piuze and Samuel Billaud even had some wines at 11.8% ABV. 
  
• More nice news: Petit Chablis — almost entirely decimated by the 2021 frosts — is back in 2022. Petit Chablis gives consumers a more budget-friendly entry point into Chablis, as well as a crunchier style that some say is fading away with climate change and the growing ripeness of these wines. 
  
• There are also many great Aligoté, Saint-Bris and Bourgogne Blanc wines in 2022. Don't miss those. Look for these names: Clothide Davenne, Guilhem & Jean-Hugues Goisot and Pierre-Louis & Jean-François Bersan. 
  
• The Pinots from Irancy and Épineuil are pumped full of fruit and are super charming. Seek out any bottling from Dominique Gruhier, Maison de la Chapelle, Alain Mathias, Stéphanie Colinot or Thierry Richoux.

These are delicious now but can age, too

• Relative to other recent vintages, the 2022s are wines that everyone can sit back and relish. Unlike the leaner and occasionally challenging 2021s, there is more oomph — more concentration — here. Different from the serious and almost imposing 2020s, these 2022s are more approachable now. 
  
• Generally speaking, the best 2022 wines have an easy 15- to 25-year drinking window. As Benoît Drouin of Domaine JP & Benoît Droin pointed out, "All of the vintages keep well today. They may start drinking well at different times and some last longer than others, but the quality is there to keep the wines in every year now." 
  
• "In fact, the risk with the 2022s,” according to Didier Defaix of Domaine Bernard Defaix, “is to drink them too early."

The wines worth seeking out

• In a vintage this pleasure-giving, it's hard to narrow the number of domaines to keep an eye out for. Most producers showed at least one wine that was super tasty and fun, even if not necessarily complex and age-worthy. None of the producers who shined brightest will come as a surprise, but every one of the wines in these top dozen cellars really stood out:
  • Billaud-Simon
  • Bernard Defaix
  • Christian Moreau
  • François Raveneau
  • Jean Collet
  • Jean-Paul & Benoît Droin
  • Long-Dépaquit
  • Moreau-Naudet
  • Nathalie et Gilles Fèvre
  • Samuel Billaud
  • Vincent Dauvissat
  • William Fèvre

• One thing to keep in mind in this vintage — and any other for that matter — is that the best Premier Crus can rival many Grand Crus. The best producers’ Premier Crus are easily as good as second- or third-tier producers’ Grand Crus. You can pay up for quality for the former without tipping into the increasingly heady priciness of the latter. 

• Plus, keep in mind that the best wines of Chablis — while no doubt rising (in some cases, alarmingly) in price — deliver far more value than their Côte d’Or peers. Many village-level Côte de Beaune wines cost as much as a Chablis Grand Cru! You’ll pay more for the Côte de Beaune village, yet receive less complexity and quality than in a Grand Cru Chablis. 

• If you enjoy aged white Burgundy, bear in mind that the top Chablis wines — not just Raveneau and Dauvissat, mind you — have a remarkable life span. Some of my favorite Premier Crus—regardless the vintage—include the Nathalie & Gilles Fèvre Vaulorent, Christian Moreau Valmur, Guillaume Vrignaud Fourchaume Les Vaupulans, Samuel Billaud Séchet Vieilles Vignes and Pinson La Forêt. But there are more beyond these that will reward those wishing to explore high quality, age-worthy Chablis.

The season was (again) hot and dry ... but saved by rain

• 2022 was the hottest, driest year with the most sunshine hours since the beginning of the twentieth century. Yet the 2022 grapes, while certainly mature, were technically less ripe than in 2003, 2006, 2015 and 2018 to 2020. 

• Louis Gimmonet of Domaine Long-Depaquit declared that every single grape was ripe. But Benoît Droin insisted, "There weren't the hot weather aromas that you could find in the 2018s and 2015s." 

• The key was precipitation at the right time. The first five months of the year ran a water deficit, then June was soaking wet. Romain Collet of Domaine Jean Collet was grateful for some rain in mid-August, and Picq felt the early September rains saved the harvest.

• While the heat and drought conditions kept winemakers (literally) up at night, the season was otherwise pretty easy. The early April frosts took little crop. And while six hail events occurred in June, they were small and hyper-localized. 

• One recent development has proven critical in protecting the vines during these episodes: hail cannons.  Winemakers in Chablis are thrilled with the network of 40 hail cannons that protect the vines by seeding clouds with silver iodide to reduce the size of the hail into smaller, less-damaging pieces. 

A leisurely, if warm, harvest

• Unusually, the harvest wasn't rushed, even if it started early. Harvesting in August is no longer a surprise. Didier Séguier at Domaine William Fèvre said that when his first maturity controls started on August 16th, some Right Bank vines were already showing 12% abv. Those eventually were picked at 13%. Stéphane Barras at Domaine Laroche was one of the first to start on August 25th, but he wasn't pressured to bring in fruit. 
  
• As a result of the warmer summers and even harvest periods, Chablis is increasingly focused on picking at night or very early in the morning and having plenty of cooling equipment to keep aromas as fresh as possible. 

There's more juice to go around 

• After a few years of worryingly small crops, the Bourgogne Wine Board (BIVB) reported that volumes were up 23% over the average of the last five years. 

• And, thank goodness the yields were generous because the grapes didn't have much juice in them, according Isabelle Raveneau of Domaine François Raveneau. Of course, it depended on when you harvested. Fabien Moreau of Domaine Christian Moreau said that after the rains, the yields were clearly higher.

• This year's 2023 harvest was plentiful, too, so hopefully this will help ease price pressure and provide bigger allocations. Louis Moreau said that he's had as few as eight months of stock left in the cellars recently (15 months is his ideal margin). Similarly, Louis Michel said it has felt like his reserves of stocks are melting away lately.

The buzz about town

• Chablis is more welcoming than ever, with excellent restaurants and more new, small hotels and AirBnBs than before. Plus, more producers have tasting rooms in town. Unlike in Beaune where cavistes (wine stores) dominate, you get to speak with the people who actually work at the property in Chablis, which gives the region an impressively personal, laid-back feel.

• There’s a collective, creative energy in Chablis, too. More and more new producers—most of whom have opted out of selling grapes to the excellent local cooperative, La Chablisienne—are popping up and putting their family names on the bottles.

• Perhaps the biggest news story in Chablis this year was Lafite-Rothschild's purchase of Domaine William Fèvre this summer. Expect it to draw more attention to this formerly sleepy village, which increasingly looks like the next big "it" investment in Burgundy. Chablis has been largely left alone until now, save investments from large Côte d'Or companies like Drouhin, Bichot and Jadot. In the wake of Fèvre’s acquisition, that may not last long.