Chablis Vent d'Ange Mise Tardive

Thomas Pico grew up in Courgis, a Chablis village, with a father and a grandfather who both made wine. After a viticulture and oenology course in Beaune he came back to the family Domaine de Bois d'Yver in 2004. A year later he took over 8 hectares of its vines, converted them to organic farming and began planting on the lieu-dit Pattes Loup, which gave his own domaine its name. The first bottles came in 2006, and organic certification followed in 2009.

Vent d'Ange is his village Chablis, drawn from parcels around Courgis: Pattes Loup, Les Menardes and Les Malentes. The Swiss merchant Cavesa adds that Les Malentes holds 1.25 hectares of old vines planted in 1951 by Thomas's grandfather from a massal selection, and puts the whole cuvée at a little over 2 hectares.

For the classic Vent d'Ange the cellar work is spare: native yeasts, no chaptalisation or acidification, no fining or filtration, and only a small dose of sulphur, as Cavesa describes it. The merchants do not agree on wood. Cavesa says the wine never sees any, and spends a year in stainless steel and concrete eggs. The Bordeaux shop Clos des Spiritueux speaks of steel and concrete too, but also of a year in used barrels and two more in vat.

This is the mise tardive, the late bottling, kept unfiltered. Clos des Spiritueux describes it as the same vintage bottled later than the classic cuvée. The 2019 of this bottling went into glass in January 2022, more than two years after its harvest.

The Wine Advocate, quoted on the domaine's own site, called Pico a disciple of Olivier De Moor.