Label

Alice et Olivier de Moor

ChablisFrance

Alice and Olivier de Moor farm a small estate in Courgis, on the southern edge of Chablis, producing some of the appellation's most distinctive whites, including an exceptional old-vine Aligoté and Kimmeridgian-inflected village wines of real precision.


### History Alice and Olivier de Moor are based in Courgis, a village that sits at the southwestern edge of the Chablis appellation, slightly removed from the Serein valley heartland around the town of Chablis itself. Olivier trained in winemaking and spent time working in other regions before the couple established their own domaine, which has been in operation since the 1990s. They have built their reputation gradually, without significant outside backing or inherited Grand Cru holdings, which has shaped the character of the estate: a focus on village-level and premier cru wines that reward close attention, alongside a well-regarded Aligoté program that has attracted serious collectors.

The domaine has become something of a reference point for growers working seriously with Aligoté in Burgundy. The cuvée Plantation 1902 , named for the year the vines were planted , is drawn from one of the oldest Aligoté parcels in the region and is widely considered one of the benchmark expressions of the variety in France. This work with Aligoté is not incidental; it reflects a considered interest in the grape's capacity for complexity when grown on the right soils and left to age.

### Vineyards The estate's holdings are concentrated around Courgis and the surrounding communes. This part of Chablis sits on the same Kimmeridgian limestone and clay soils that define the appellation's character , compacted marl studded with fossilized oyster shells , though the specific expressions vary parcel to parcel. The premier cru Vau de Vey lies to the northwest of the town of Chablis and is classified among the larger, less-heralded premier cru clusters, though it can produce wines of real mineral definition in the right hands.

The Aligoté vines, particularly those behind the Plantation 1902 bottling, are among the estate's most significant assets by age if not by appellation status. Old Aligoté on Kimmeridgian soils behaves quite differently from younger plantings on less distinguished ground, and the de Moors have been attentive to this. Cuvée names like Côteau de Rosette, Bel Air et Clardy, and L'Humeur du Temps suggest a parcel-aware approach to farming, with individual sites bottled separately when the vintage justifies it. The domaine farms organically, though specific certification details are not always prominently publicized.

### Winemaking The de Moors work reductively and without heavy intervention. Fermentations rely on native yeasts, and the wines see little or no new oak , Chablis-region producers of this sensibility typically favor large neutral vessels, old barrels, or a mix of tank and barrel, and the de Moors are consistent with that approach. The wines are not heavily filtered or fined, and they tend to show a slightly textured, sometimes cloudy character in youth that resolves with time in bottle.

The Nuova Descriptio bottling , the name borrowed from an early cartographic tradition , sits somewhat outside the standard Chablis hierarchy and appears to reflect a freer approach to blending or site selection. L'Humeur du Temps, whose name translates roughly as "the mood of the moment," functions as a vintage-variable expression, its composition shifting according to what the year produced. Across the range, the house style leans toward taut, saline wines with restrained fruit and a long, mineral finish , Chablis that reads as place before variety.