Blind Tasting: Kirkland Signature Chablis Premier Cru vs Louis Jadot Chablis

Apologies for the long wait in between our posts and wine reviews! It’s been an eventful couple of weeks that included both work and play while on the road. We are grateful for the opportunities, but we missed connecting digitally with our blog readers! 

A full debrief of our travels to Santa Barbara Wine Country will come soon, but in the meantime, we need to share the results of another side-by-side blind tasting done before our trip. 

2017 Kirkland Chablis Premier Cru ($19.99)

versus 

2018 Louis Jadot Chablis ($19.99)

We purchased these bottles of Chablis (wine made from Chardonnay grapes in the Chablis Wine Region, France) way back in March, so we’ve had our eyes on this tasting for what seems like forever. Let’s see how these wines fared against one another!

Wine #1: Poured a nice straw yellow color. On the nose it presented aromas of apricots and peaches. The palate was pleasant - possessing characteristic salinity and mineral notes with a clean flavor. It was linear and “steely” in the way the wine crossed our palates. It had a light mouthfeel and texture. However, we all noted that this wine was perhaps a little “mundane”.

Wine #2: Poured a deeper yellow color compared to the first. The nose was funky (in a very good way) and had lots of personality straight away. On the palate this wine really showed something more special all around. It had zip, minerality, sea salt, richness, and a depth of flavor that kept begging to be enjoyed. Even with all of that flavor going on, this wine still had a great sense of balance. 

The winner? 

All four tasters cleary and easily preferred wine #2, which was the Kirkland Premier Cru!

Is it worth it?

Absolutely! $20 for a Premier Cru Chablis is an excellent price - you’ve got to work pretty hard to find another one for less than $30-$35. Total Wine has one for $35, Wine.com has one for $42, but we did find one at a shop in upstate NY on a good sale for under $30 (but then shipping costs eat into that savings).

In reality, this wasn’t much of a fair competition. By and large, most Premier Cru wines will knock the socks off of a Village wine - even this Chardonnay from a well-reputed and historic producer, Louis Jadot. At the time of purchase, we would have loved to have picked up another Premier Cru or a slightly more expensive Village wine for a competition on a more equal footing, but we were out of luck.

There are many experts on the wines of Burgundy, so we won’t go into details about the technical differences here. What we will tell you is that these wines are limited in production and therefore you won’t see the Kirkland Signature wine in the bins at Costco for too long, so if you see them, grab ‘em, you won’t regret it!