2019 Isabelle & Denis Pommier Hauterivien Petit Chablis 750 ml

Over the years, we’ve developed a ritual to wrap up our buying trips in France: a stop at a Parisian wine bar. There’s no better way to find undiscovered gems than to sidle up to the bar and ask for what they can’t keep in stock.

With a few hours to kill on a hot summer day, we found ourselves doing just that. Our palates screamed for Chablis, so we asked the barman and he poured a beautiful pale-lemon liquid into our glasses. We were overtaken by the crystalline aromas of green apple, lemon blossom, and toasted nuts, and the concentration and richness made one of us exclaim, “Man, that is one hell of a village Chablis."  

Except it wasn’t. 

When the barman revealed the bottle, we were greeted with a “Petit'' Chablis on the label, which was shocking. Out came the notebook: “This is way too good to be Petit Chablis.” It took us a full year to track it down after that, but it was worth the effort.

Isabelle and Denis Pommier launched their enterprise in 1990. A young couple at the time, they decided to begin farming a mere five acres of their family’s land to craft their own wines. Their first release was in 1994, and since then they’ve added 34 more acres, stretching from Petit Chablis all the way to a trio of great Chablis Premiers Crus.

The Pommiers farm organically, which is very challenging—and thus very rare—in viticulturally hazard-prone Chablis. They also pick some plots by hand, an overlooked but absolutely essential key to quality in a domaine of their size. 

This wine is a juicy, leesy little coup—and a stunning value.