Olivier Morin Chitry Cuvee Constance 2022

I don’t suffer fools lightly, but I do have a special place in my heart for the people of Chitry in Chablis, France.

Chablis makes the most undervalued wine in the world – Chablis. Chablis is often mistaken as that bag-in-a-box wine rotting in Grandma’s basement. Or, it is damningly associated with sweet, cloyingly oaked Chardonnay from California. It is neither of these things. Again, Chablis is the greatest, most undervalued wine in the world. And I am going to explain this platitude to you. And you will love Chablis. But before that…   

This email is really all about me, my heart, and the drunken fools of Chitry.    

Chitry – (I have heard this pronounced one of two ways: the first, sounds like you own a very stylish tree; the second, like the tree is a location for the flaming-paper-bag prank) – is 1 mile west of the premier cru vineyard Courgis in Chablis. 

Here is the catch: Chitry is in France so we can’t call Chitry Chablis nor call Chitry Premier Cru Courgis Chablis. Instead, we have to call Chitry “Bourgogne Chitry.” Why? Because in the 1930s when France was drawing up its wine laws, the citizens of Chitry didn’t apply for the name Chablis.

Doh!

I don’t suffer fools lightly, yet drunken fools, hammered (or hung over) on great Chablis I hold in a very special place somewhere between Valhalla and the Birdhouse in My Soul. Keep in mind I was late for my own college graduation. I have to admire an entire community that has been committed to making great wine for 250 years, yet fails to get the permit allowing them to label it as great wine. 

I submit to you that in all but name, Chitry is Chablis. And further, Chablis makes great wine. Wine whose mineral, saline savor brings together a magical combination of textural richness and delicate refreshment that no other wine in the world can match. And Chablis is CHEAP. Go 30 minutes south and pay ten to 100 times as much for white Burgundy. Go to Napa and buy a winemaker’s ego for five times as much. Or stay in Chitry and drink so much that you, too, forget to show up on time! The choice is yours, but the smart money is here. And with this wine, it shows:

Pear, white peach, lemon, lily-of-the-valley, and narcissus in the nose migrate to an infectiously juicy palate seemingly infused with chalk dust and sea salt. This wine conveys the effusiveness; refreshment; and at the same time, transparency to floral and mineral nuances that characterize the vintage at its best. Frankly, the greatest Chitry (and I have to take a lot of Chitry in my line of work) I have ever had is Morin’s Chitry Constance. And further no other wine in the world is as great a value as Morin’s Chitry.