Domaine Nathalie et Gilles Fèvre

The landscape is a historical document to those who know to read it, and no family has more practice than the Fèvres, who trace their roots in Chablis to 1745. The upper reaches of the plots reach back the furthest, for the threat of spring frosts long discouraged planting on the bottoms where cold air can pool. Not until the 1980s did frost-protection systems (and then climate change) alter that calculus. Indeed, Julie’s great-grandfather once turned down the chance to buy a Grand Cru site near Bougros—because the four-kilometer horse ride was just too long to reach vines that could lose all their fruit in a single cold snap. 

Hindsight can sting. But uncommon foresight has actually been the Fèvre family’s calling card. In 1923, gripped by a holistic vision of Chablis’ future, Marcel Fèvre helped to establish La Chablisienne—which would become arguably the most influential cooperative in the history of French winemaking. His son Bernard served as president, as did Bernard’s son Jacques. For 80 years the family delivered all their fruit to the co-op, which was instrumental in solidifying the region’s reputation. That deep involvement carried into the present generation through Jacques’ son Gilles—whose wife Nathalie served as La Chablisienne’s chief oenologist for 12 years. Bit by bit, the family’s holdings also grew: replanting a phylloxera-ravaged plot here, converting an old field there, and acquiring prized parcels like a 2.3-hectare slice of the Grand Cru Les Preuses containing vines that date back to 1950—and a contiguous section of Vaulorent whose southwest-exposed Kimmeridgian marl makes it arguably an even brighter jewel in a warming climate. Savvy moves and a few strokes of good fortune have endowed them with 50 hectares sprinkled around the Serein’s right bank.

In 2003 Gilles and Nathalie opened a new chapter in their family’s history, pivoting toward bottling their own wine for the first time. The next year brought the completion of a state-of-the-art winery—a gravity-fed facility they’ve kept so squeaky clean you could eat gougères off the floor. 

The timing was perfect. Gilles had embarked on a viticultural journey that would culminate with organic certification—and is now deepening into biodynamics. Meanwhile Nathalie, through her work at La Chablisienne, had developed a profound expertise in understanding the various terroirs of Chablis. They wanted to combine their strengths in order to produce truly authentic wines, practicing parcel-by-parcel vinification to preserve the unique character of each climat. “The major difference compared to before,” says their daughter Julie—who brings degrees in agronomy, viticulture, and oenology to the table as a fifth-generation Fèvre—“is being able to directly see in the wines the efforts put into the vineyards.” It is, she adds, “a beautiful reward.”

When you combine five generations of viticultural know-how with a 21st-century winery, the results speak for themselves. Vinifying primarily in temperature-controlled stainless steel, the Fèvres foreground freshness and purity in all of their cuveés. French oak is used judiciously where the fruit can handle it, most notably in the Montée de Tonnerre, whose rich core is in vibrant tension with a flinty tautness and sapid minerality that mark the Premier Cru and village-level bottlings alike. Aromatics vary from the pale stone fruit of Les Preuses, to the citrus-zest florality of Vaulorent, to the tart apple and honey of an overachieving AOC Chablis drawn from parcels just northeast of the Grand Cru hill. But they are united by the persistent oyster-shell minerality and back-palate tang that epitomize what Marcel Fèvre recognized in these hillsides a century ago.

And that, above all else, is what his great-great-granddaughter has internalized from her parents’ bold revitalization of this estimable domaine. “The family has passed down a heritage, and it’s my responsibility to continue the beautiful story,” says Julie, before emphasizing exactly what that means: 

“We don’t make ‘Chardonnay.’ We make Chablis.”