The Wines of Chablis A Comprehensive Guide to the World's Most Famous White Wine

Michel Barat

The Barat family has been making wine for six generations but only began estate bottling in the early 1990’s. The domaine is run today by the humorous and sincere Michel Barat, his wife Joëlle and his two children, Ludovic and Angèle. The caves were built in 1725. These wines have an almost cultish following by those who seek high quality at an excellent price and can be seen on the tables of many in the various restaurants throughout Chablis. They are clean, pure, mineral Chablis, and there is no oak chez Barat. Depending on the vintage, Michel Barat experiments a bit with batonnage: there was none in 1998, a little in 1999 and quite a bit in 2000, for instance. Lees stirring notwithstanding, the winemaking is quite straightforward and the wines are extremely dependable. Barat’s holdings are divided roughly equally between Chablis Villages (from the excellent lieu-dit les Champlains, just under 1er Cru les Lys) and four Premier Crus, two on the left bank (Vaillons and Cote de Lechet) and two on the right (Fourneaux and Mont de Milieu), with about 10 hectares on either side.

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