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 – 2021 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 2021 vintage, Édouard noted that “we picked from the 25th of September and did a fair amount of sorting in the vineyards as there was an attack of botrytis in early September. Potential alcohols were good but not high at between of 11.7 to 12.5%. Yields though were another story as we lost fully 50% of the potential crop. I actually thought that we might be off more in the 65% area but the volume of juice in the berries was better than we expected. As to the quality of the wines, 2021 produced a style of Chablis that I like a great deal as there is some restraint and austerity without being green or hard.” As my comments will 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

“Edouard Vocoret met me at the winery to guide me through a small portfolio of 2021s. Together with his wife Eleni, the Vocorets have become symbols of welcome new blood in Chablis. Vocoret told me how they have been delving into the geology of their holdings. “We have an explanation about the way the Boucheran evolves because two-thirds is on the yellow marl soils whereas Les Pargues is on white grey marl. We talked to geologists who told us that the yellow marl is more oxidized, explaining how Boucheran can be more aromatically intense compared to Les Pargues that tends to be austere. The 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 yet our normal 160 barrels is halved this year.” – 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