The 2007 Petit Chablis (from up behind Les Clos) is bright, brash, and refreshing, with gooseberry and herb suggestions reminiscent of Sauvignon, and a palpable sense of vintage-typical extract that by no means leaves this lowliest of Chablis appellations short-changed. This finishes with admirable grip and a mingling of pear skin and grapefruit that is riper – though invigoratingly tart – than the impression on entry, and tinged with cherry pit, grapefruit zest, and chalk. “It would have been easy to let the alcohol run-up on this site,” Droin observes, but he picked it during the midpoint of his harvest to avoid that. Enjoy it over the next 2-3 years. In striking contrast with the experience of most of his colleagues, Benoit Droin’s 2007s were very slow to begin – much less complete – their malolactic transformations. Droin believes in the potential of machine harvesting in a majority of his vineyards, even in a year with hail, and the bottled results once again point up the foolishness of glib generalizations such as abound on that particular subject. That said, the potential weak spot in some of his 2007s – perhaps due to much-reduced yields, perhaps to hail per se, and a feature to which some tasters will certainly be more sensitive than others – is their tendency toward bitterness. These wines weighed-in in the low 13s natural alcohol, a bit higher than the vintage norm.Importer: Eric Solomon Selections, Charlotte, NC; tel. (704) 358-1565