Domaine Oudin

Jean-Claude and Christiane Oudin left their jobs in Paris and went back to Chablis. The starting point was the two hectares Christiane's father owned in Chichée, a small village just south of Chablis. They built the estate up to its present ten hectares.

Their daughter Nathalie runs it today, with her sister Isabelle.

A third of those ten hectares is old vine from massal selection — the house's own plant material, not nursery clones; the rest was planted by the parents and the vines are now around forty years old. Everything sits in the Chichée sector, including the premiers crus Vaucoupins and Vaugiraut.

With Vaugiraut they do something almost nobody does. Vaugiraut is a sub-climat of Vosgros, and the rules allow wine from Vaugiraut to be labelled Vosgros, but not the other way round. So they may use the bigger name, the one a buyer recognises, and instead they put the smaller one.