Reflections on Raveneau

One could say I’ve been particularly ravenous for Raveneau of late, or on a bent of Raveneau revenge? Either way, these bottles have served as serious inspiration and the time has come for a few reflections.

To come back from my alliterative absurdity, I’ve been very fortunate to have my fair share of Raveneau this year, and even more so in the past two months. I made a rule in 2017 not to open any Raveneau (from my own cellar) under 10 years of bottle age, and since then my experiences have gained hugely in consistency. With secondary market prices continuing to soar, each opportunity to taste these wines grows dearer, making the need for reflection and learning even greater.

I’m particularly fascinated by how much the current Raveneau approach differs from the current state of conventional wisdom in making contemporary ‘mainstream’ White Burgundy. Theirs is an approach that is relatively oxidative, with very limited use of lees, and yet has almost no issues of premature oxidation.

This equation begins with a very different and equally multifactorial set of terroir, viticultural and winemaking determinants, and Chablis is often much more reductive than most other Chardonnay grown in Burgundy as a result. That the wines, across different sites and producers, have been historically and culturally codified as ‘goût de pierre à fusil’, tasting of gunflint, is a reflection of this deeply ingrained regional character.

Interestingly, I’ve come to learn that the current process is somewhat different than when Francois Raveneau, who retired in 1995, was in charge. I understand that Francois retained a large quantity of solids and lees as well as using more feuillette in the balance of vessels for elevage, but I haven’t been able to find too many more details otherwise.

Tasting the wines, speaking with friends and from my own research, my sense is that the current Raveneau approach is very much one formed by and adapted to Chablis’ inherent tendencies, through the lens of their own aesthetic values, as well as to the differences in ripening and chemistry due to global warming.

The basics of the approach are, warm fermentations of 18-20 degrees followed by malolactic in stainless steel tank, with the remainder of elevage in used pièce with the occasional demi muid and an increasingly few number of feuillettes. Today, Raveneau employs very small quantity of lees, only the very finest, for a total of 20-21 months from picking to bottling for an elevage of at least two winters, and sometimes two Easters as the wines are often bottled in May.

What’s changed most are the grapes themselves, as William Kelley writes, “since 1989, they have seldom had to chaptalize…Jean-Marie also notes that their grapes are lower in acidity than in the past: In the 1990 vintage, he told me, nine grams of acidity per liter was common; today, five or six grams per liter is more common”¹

With regards to the changing chemistry, I deduce that the pHs today are somewhat higher in warm years, but in ‘classic’ years they will be of a similar range to decades past, but with an overall lower quantity of total acidity.

For context -

Raveneau finished numbers for Montee de Tonnerre:

Warm vintages (05,09,15 essentially identical):

12.7-13 abv, 3.25 finished pH, 5.6 g/l TA.

‘Classic’ vintages:

2014 - 12.78% alcohol; 3.17 pH finished; 6.5 g/l TA,

2008 - 12.69, 3.14pH finished, 6.7 g/l TA

With all this in mind, perhaps it’s no surprise that elevage in 132 liter Feuillette with multiple rackings, for a minimum of two winters, was de rigueur historically in Chablis. “Air is the wine's friend, François Raveneau used to say”, writes William Kelley.

Raveneau is often spoken of in comparison to Dauvissat, who is then often cited in the same manner when Tribut is poured. From afar, the wines all seem similarly made yet taste and feel totally distinct. All three ferment in stainless steel and undergo elevage in old wood. But the devil, and ultimately, the difference is in the details.

Both Raveneau and Dauvissat finish malo in tank before elevage in wood, but Raveneau racks very clean and Dauvissat racks dirty, keeping a much greater quantity of lees.

With less reduction in the redox chemistry, Raveneau is more reliant on sulfur during elevage, and with the length of time in barrel, this relatively oxidative environment creates the conditions for building breadth and texture. (Though one quite different from lees derived weight and viscosity)

Similar to Dauvissat, Tribut racks dirty, but instead does malo in barrel, so the wines are again broader (compared to Dauvissat) and most reductive of the three as a result. The environment and processes through which the wines undergo elevage in wood is then quite different for each producer.

All of this makes me think, has Bernard Raveneau taken his father’s maxim, that fondness of air, to its extreme (albeit in a very different way)?

How did the wines taste?

1995 Raveneau Forets

(From my own cellar)

From the first pour, this was all beeswax, comté, lemon oil, zest and pith, so much detail of flavor, umami depth and viscous complexity. super chalky, with searing acid. Amazing.

Bernard Raveneau’s first vintage in charge, but I imagine Francois would still have been around?

Such incredible balance and proportion of textural complexity, generosity and chiseled structure. Saline, chalky, immensely deep, basis of structure, like an iceberg.

Viscosity that grows in detail without gaining weight - both the tangy roundness of crème fraîche and the savory glide of beeswax, balancing and buffering the intensifying of dry extract laden chiseled chalky density. One of the most dense Raveneau that I've ever had.

Every time I taste Raveneau of this period and older I am floored by the incredible and ever expanding detail of flavor, the generosity of layered textural complexity and the enduring structural intensity.

The blind calls went from Puligny side Grand Cru to Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne which speaks to the intensity of both flavor and structure but most of all how unusual the wines of Raveneau are in Chablis.

2005 Raveneau Montee de Tonnerre

(From my own cellar)

Wonderfully aromatic, Cristiana Tiberio says her head begins to explode just smelling the wine before she sees what it is. Lemon zest creme fraiche, beeswax and waxy aged comte like tangy, saline umami and texture, lemon oil, zest and juice, grilled hazelnut, toasted sesame, this is clearly of a warm vintage in its generosity, its tangy, creamy viscosity and enveloped acidity, which feels much quieter than the 78.

With air and cooler serving temperature the chalky mid palate density grows but it’s still quieter, more enveloped than the other two whites.

The second half of my last glass has really gained in tension and structure and is by far the best glass of the bottle. This glass really shows a sense of chalky dry extract and bright acidity that combine to bring great energy and verve that more than meets and matches the viscosity, the two now are in lockstep. Amazing.

Really sings of mature Comté in the empty glass! This really needed a full 7-8 hours of air for all its parts and pieces to achieve cohesion and find coherence.

The contrast between this bottle and the 78 really speaks of changing climate conditions and points of balance, when 9+ grams of total acidity was commonplace.

2007 Raveneau Montee de Tonnerre

(From my own cellar)

Stunning, singing of lemon oil crystallinity, with a base of lemon zest creme fraiche, tangy creamy breadth. Beautifully waxy as well, the combination of which seems to connect these MDTs and mature Raveneau as a whole. Fennel pollen and frond sweet floral/herbal anise tinged umami, with laser like acid that highlights the salinity of oyster brine.

Crushed chalk and oyster shell, really three dimensional in its mouthfeel. Electrifying, tongue tingling acid, humming with energy and chewy, chiseled grip. The combination of lemon zest creme fraiche and beeswax viscosity beautifully coats and balances the intensity of this vibrantly dense, intensely tactile structure.

With air this gains in gunflint, a beautifully salty, smoky edge to the nose. Really layered and multidimensional.

Compared to the 09 Dauvissat Clos, this was slightly less dense in its chalkiness (as is expected for the two sites), but more waxy, tangy, creamy viscosity with a firmer, more electric acidity due to vintage.

With air and time, this grows and grows in density with air without gaining any weight, a beautifully fine, pithy chalk dust character that is buttressed by the laser beam acid, forming a core of chalky density.

2018 Raveneau Montee de Tonnerre - bottled may 6th 2020

Part of a larger Raveneau dinner hosted by their importer, Muyi Fine Wines

This reminds me of the beautifully pure and youthful 82 Louis Michel MDT from the night before in its preponderance and dominance of noisette. Really 3-4x more volume of aromatic noisette than the other cuvées. This is incredible, showing so much more textural depth, layering and complexity, most of all the wines tonight. Of all the wines, most defined and volume of creme fraiche + beeswax viscosity in combination (70/30 ratio roughly).

What’s really fascinating is how the subtly toasty, nutty, deeply fragrant and umami noisette is fortified and amplified by the tangy, creamy viscosity of lemon zest creme fraiche.

So Raveneau and so MDT. Less acidity that the Butteaux next to it, but more texture and after 30 minutes, much more dense as well. Very, very complete.

2018 Raveneau Butteaux (July 2023) - bottled May 20th 2020

Part of a larger Raveneau dinner hosted by their importer, Muyi Fine Wines

Smells much more linear and pure. Most electric and classic chablis wine of the evening, gunflint, oyster shell and brine chalky salinity. Really pure lemon zest and oil, beautifully waxy with just a touch of creme fraiche (95/5%). The predominantly savory and gliding sense of waxy texture highlights and reinforces the sense of salinity and purity in this wine, in the same way that the creme fraiche tangy creaminess amplifies the sense of noisette in the 18 MDT.

Really delicious and so classic. Most interesting flight and comparison of the night. Most mineral, most pure, most classically lemon/lime/oyster/gunflint of all the wines, the combination of which is stunning, a different side of the same coin.

What were the threads that connected these wines, and what makes the wines of Raveneau so special for me?

The description of Raveneau’s wines I encounter most is that of being classically Chablisienne in their structure, but with the weight and breadth better associated with the wines of the Cote de Beaune. It’s a tired interpretation, one reliant on outdated stereotypes, especially as many modern Meursault are steelier and less textural than Raveneau’s wines today.

What this analogy is really trying to say is that Raveneau’s wines are unusual, they are singular. Raveneau transcends traditional conceptions of Chablis and yet they are the benchmark for greatness. The wines challenge and expand the possibilities of style and quality in a place where much of production is incredibly homogenous and one dimensional.

I’ve found Raveneau’s wines often exhibit a different type of reduction in youth, a flintier, oyster shell, more sulfitic austerity as compared to the lees driven reduction of Dauvissat. As a result, domaine’s wines often need longer in bottle to reach their first window of generosity and openness, especially in higher acid vintages (particularly as sulfur is more efficacious at lower pHs).

Beginning around ten years of bottle age, a spectacular sense of textural complexity emerges, one that allows for a fascinating interaction between viscosity and structure.

My mental model of Raveneau begins with a lighter footed, savory, almost glidingly waxy viscosity and layered in combination with a broader, creamier and coating, tangy lemon tinged creme fraiche. As with all great White Burgundy, the impact and depth of this textural complexity grows and amplifies with further bottle age. At twenty five, the wax of youth moves to a honey tinged, subtly sweeter but equally lightfooted beeswax and the creme fraiche gains in savory depth and viscous density, taking on the umami of aged comté.

At any age, the combination of these contrasting and complementary senses of texture is one that is unusual not only in Chablis but throughout all of Burgundy and the world of Chardonnay.

Flavors change and develop, but chalky dry extract, tensile, incisive acidity and a persistent thread of briny, oyster shell, saline, mineral umami are the other elements that remain constant alongside the textural components and complete the picture.

These elements appear in varying levels and proportions depending on cuvée, reflecting the character of the soils, exposition and microclimate: the monolithic, chiseled density of Valmur, the sheer mass, power and intensity of Clos, the cooler, deeper soiled and resultingly taut and pure Butteaux, the hauntingly fragrant, noisette tinged balance of depth, generosity and tension that marks the Montee de Tonnerre.

Raveneau’s wines aren’t the most densely chiseled with dry extract, though there is plenty, nor are they the most searing or taut White Burgundies made today. It is the how these elements all fit together, that combination of flavor, texture and structure, which makes Raveneau so singular and unique in my mind.

From all this it becomes clear that the Raveneau aesthetic and the personality of each site are very much complementary. The wines are always unmistakably Raveneau, and part of that is an understanding of how best to highlight the character of each vineyard. This is the basis for their greatness.

What did I take from these wines for my own winemaking?

There’s more than one way to make great wine. With a different set of climate and terroir conditions, I may not make many, or even any, of the same choices, but the results are undeniable.

Some of my greatest inspiration have come from White Burgundies of the 30s through the late 70s, whose searing acidity and densely chalky, muscular dry extract and phenolic grip present as a totally intertwined, single pillar of combined structure. Certainly, this structure and its intertwining nature was born of a different climate, its resulting chemistry as well as longer, firmer and more oxidative pressing before the introduction of pneumatic presses.

For me, the crucial piece that combines the higher acidity of a previously cooler climate and the dry extract of long, firm pressing is an elevage of at least two full years, sometimes three, in cold cellars, where water and alcohol slowly evaporates over time, leaving behind a higher proportion of dissolved solid matter in the wine to marry and intertwine with time - acid, dry extract, phenolics.

Having tasted an experiment of the same White Burgundy bottled after 12, 18 and 24 months blind, I‘ve learned that even with the same starting chemistry, the wine with the longest time in barrel had the most obvious and intense sense of freshness and energy, of deeply embedded structure.

The sense of ‘distance’ between the acid, dry extract and phenolic elements seemed to shrink with each additional six months of elevage, and by the 24 month bottling, it was almost impossible to tell them apart.

In order to help scavenge oxygen, to balance and sustain such a classically long elevage, I want to take a high quantity of solids after pressing and retain a high proportion of lees after fermentation and throughout elevage in 350L casks.

At the same time I want these solids and lees for how they nourish the wine through elevage, what they can give in layers of texture and how they consume byproducts of malolactic and integrate oak flavor compounds.

But after tasting these wines, and thinking on Francois Raveneau and Chablis’ historic use of feuillette, I’m beginning to wonder: with the character and chemistry of our fruit, our cooler climate, and higher altitude environment, is the use of larger casks to help push a longer elevage completely necessary?

With how little oxygen we have at 2800m, would a portion of fermentation and elevage done in feuillette (in conjunction with 350s), be useful to help polish the intense structure of our fruit, balance our level of solids, and build further breadth, depth and texture in our wines?

Or is this all entirely futile, creating extra work for the same results as if we fermented and raised the wine entirely in 228L pièce?

My goal is ultimately to farm and make wine in a way that maximizes the potential of our vineyard. Without collective winemaking memory in our region to call upon, we have to experiment more than established regions to build that base of understanding for ourselves.

With all of this in mind, I am very excited to trial and learn what combination of choices during elevage will bring out the best in our wines.

How do Raveneau’s wines age so well with such a different approach to other producers I admire?

To be fair - I’m not sure. The logic of Raveneau’s winemaking is so different to my other benchmarks and my own experience I can’t fully intuit how it all fits together.

But it’s clear that in the many differences of choice and detail lies the answer to the singular combination of layered textural complexity that defines Raveneau in my mind.

For me, everything comes back to this idea of embracing difference.

Raveneau’s greatness is due in part to their willingness to embrace difference, to do things their own way.

All of this is done to achieve an outcome that is uniquely their own, true to their own aesthetic values, one that transcends the appellation and simultaneously redefines what is possible.

I believe that how we do that in our own work in Yunnan will continue to gain in clarity as we complete more cycles of farming and vinify more harvests. Learning how to harness the unusual character of our vineyard and maximize it’s potential through fermentation, pressing and careful elevage will be our next big undertaking.

What Raveneau’s example has taught me is to identify and challenge my preconceived ideas, a continuing reminder that often the limiting factor in growing and making wine is what the vigneron imagines is possible.

¹ https://www.robertparker.com/articles/ZQAkhqQnboypYfiEQ