Eleni et Edouard Vocoret


— About —

THE ESTATE

Edouard and his wife Eleni have Chablis running through their veins. Domaine Vocoret is a well established large estate, which when entering Chablis town from the North is impossible to miss. Edouard and Eleni wanted to start their own Domaine and in 2013 purchased 5 hectares from their Father + Grandfather. Eleni had been working for some time for Vincent Dauvissat and spent time in the early years mentoring them as they established their Domaine.

Back in 2015 when I first visited the Domaine to review their inuargual 2014 vintage Edouard was keen to tell me after working at his father’s Domaine for some years he had earmarked the spots he wanted, particularly the ‘Le Bas de Chapelot’ Lieu Dit which sits just under Montee de Tonnerre.  Wine making is consistent across all three wines. Wines are wild fermented in tank then elevage takes place in seasoned barrels for 12 months.

 “My dad never told us what to do, He said “Here’s your vines, you make the wine the way you want”. With his grandfather lending them the use of the garage for their first vintage and local legend Vincent Dauvissat (from whom Eleni used to work part time) on hand for advice, the couple began using techniques such as natural yeast fermentations and ploughing with the aim of expressing terrior. “I trained with Daniel Barraud in the Maconnais and fell in love with how he made wine. Most Chablis is only made in steel tanks, but that’s not what we are looking for. We want stoniness, saltiness and acidity, but use the old barrels to help smooth the wines out”. – Noble Rot – Wine from another Galaxy

 

UPDATE ON THE DOMAINE – 2022 RELEASE
BURGHOUND + VINOUS

“Édouard and Éleni met while working in New Zealand but returned to Chablis to take over a small part of his family’s domaine where they have rapidly established a reputation for producing high quality Chablis. Édouard’s father is Patrice Vocoret who partially owns the large Domaine Vocoret & Fils. They now farm 4.9 ha and thanks to this family connection, Édouard will inherit another 5 ha of vineyards effective with the 2023 vintage that will include more Butteaux plus new 1er vineyards in Forêts, Séchet, Châtains, Montée de Tonnerre and the grand crus of Les Blanchots, Valmur and Les Clos. Not bad for a domaine that presently has only one 1er! With respect to the 2022 vintage, Éleni noted that “the growing season was magnificent as the summer was dry and hot with no disease pressure. We picked from the 3rd to the 8th of September the fruit was essentially spotless while yields were normal but definitely not high. Potential alcohols were in the 12.5% range so we didn’t touch anything up. I really like the style of this vintage as it’s ripe but not too ripe with good typicity and balance.” As my comments confirm, the Vocoret team has once again produced some outstanding wines and if you’re not familiar with them, you owe it yourself to check them out. You’ll thank me for the suggestion. Moreover, since more prestigious vineyards are coming, this is a domaine worth finding a source for now.”– Burghound

“Eleni and Edouard Vocoret might be considered the hippest winemakers in Chablis at the moment. That’s neither here nor there. What is important is the quality of the wines that continue to find an ever-larger, appreciative audience. Thankfully, there are new cuvées in the pipeline as they take over some choice parcels from Edouard Vocoret’s family. As we taste through the barrels, we discuss some of the differences between the cuvées. “We have an explanation about the way the Boucheran wines are evolving because two-thirds are on the yellow marl soils, while Les Pargues is on white-grey marl. We talked to geologists who said the yellow marl is more oxidized, which is why the Boucheran can be more intense aromatically compared to Les Pargues, that tends to be austere. The 2022 season started with the spring frost. We lost two-thirds on the Left Bank and one-third on the Right Bank, but the yield was around 32hL/ha. It was a juicy year, so the yields were higher than we anticipated. Normally, we have 160 barrels, but we only have 80 this year.” These are often very nuanced Chablis, whose virtues are not immediately apparent. I often find you have to sit with them and watch them unfold in the glass. Their Bas de Chapelot is a knockout this vintage, incidentally, a vineyard where the Vocorets are trialing tressage (literally ‘braiding’ the vines together to obviate hedging à la Lalou Bize-Leroy, Charles Lachaux and others) so far, finding that it ripens from earlier and enhances aromas.” – Neal Martin – Vinous

 

OAK VS STAINLESS STEEL
Commentary from Antonio Galloni – Vocoret and Duplessis winemaking both using oak

“Of course, there is the question of whether Chablis should be raised in oak barrels or in stainless steel; is the latter quintessentially more “Chablis” than the former? You could reasonably argue that case, though the two most feted Chablis producers, François Raveneau and Vincent Dauvissat, both raise their wines for two winters in oak, not to mention others such as Laurent Tribut or Gérard Duplessis, to name but two. Isabelle Raveneau commented that barrel aging does tend to impart more roundness to their wines, which she unequivocally said are “Raveneau before Chablis.” In my experience, it is the skill of the winemaker’s utilization of oak during élevage that prevents the oak influence from detracting from the wine’s identity and/or renders it barely perceptible. For that matter, racking my brains, I cannot remember a Raveneau that ever tasted excessively of oak, which acts more like an invisible guiding hand. Some growers have moved toward larger 500-liter barrels or foudres to minimize the impact of wood, mostly to great success; or, in the case of, say, Thomas Pico, used alternative vessels such as cement eggs” – Antonio Galloni – Vinous