Mature Flâneur

Chablis Bliss

The winsome white wine that’s the wonder of Burgundy

How to/How NOT to taste Chablis. (Photo by the nice guy who pours at the winery, taken on my phone. All other photos by Tim Ward or as noted)

Chablis is a white wine like no other. It’s a wine so special that my father, a wine expert and wine columnist for more than thirty years, named his yellow sailboat Chablis.

Right: Peter Ward (my father); middle: Denise Drew (dear family friend); left: Jane Ward (my mother). Photo of the photo by Wendy Ward (my sister), used with permission.

I sailed that sweet little boat with him for more than twenty years, without ever supposing one day I would visit the sweet little town at the heart of this famous wine region. Indeed, my beloved wife Teresa and I have enjoyed Chablis wine for years, even though we knew surprisingly little about it, until we took a trip to Burgundy and just last weekend arrived in Chablis for the Sunday farmers’ market.

Chablis Farmers Market. At right, the Defaix Wine Shop where we did our tasting

Chablis is a workaday town of two-storey limestone or plaster houses; it seems quiet, sleepy even—at least in March while the vines are still dormant and the tourists have not yet arrived. The farmers’ market held nothing fancy for visitors, just regular French fare: luscious fruit and veggies, fresh meats and ripe cheeses, plus…