The Domaine Pierrick-Laroche Chablis Bougros 2023 is a broad, mineral-driven Chardonnay from the Bougros Grand Cru at the western end of the Chablis Grand Cru hill in Burgundy. Bougros tends to give the most generous, open-shouldered of the grand crus, and this 2023 follows suit without losing its chalky spine.

Lemon curd, white peach and grapefruit pith lead the aroma, with oyster shell and a whiff of gunflint sitting underneath. Air brings out hazelnut and dried chamomile, and the fruit fills out on the palate into something rounder and riper than village Chablis.

Structurally, the wine carries real weight through the middle, with a saline, faintly bitter edge on the finish that keeps everything honest. The 2023 season set a very large crop after ideal flowering, then a September heatwave pushed ripeness quickly, and you can taste that in the wine's flesh and its softer, gentler acidity — concentrated but approachable earlier than a cooler year would allow.

Pour it with Sydney rock oysters, roast chicken with tarragon, blue swimmer crab, or a gratin of scallops. It has enough breadth to handle a soft washed-rind cheese as well, which is not something you would say of every Chablis.

Drink from now to 2032, with the middle years likely the most rewarding as the nuttier, more savoury notes settle in.