2020 Chateau Croix de Labrie Chardonnay Camille de Labrie France 750 ml

Pierre Courdurié and Michel Rolland make one helluva team. The exceptionally driven château-owner and multi-100-point consultant combine to make Château Croix de Labrie “always one of the sexiest wines from Bordeaux,” according to Robert Parker.

Now, they’ve turned out the 92-point 2020 Camille de Labrie Chardonnay, a marvelously ripe, endlessly drinkable, and staggeringly under-priced white wine—one to buy by the case. 

Pierre Courdurié’s Croix de Labrie is one of the tiniest—and mightiest—Saint-Émilion Grand Cru estates we know, scoring massive ratings and topping $100+ per bottle. After that success, he launched a value red, which is now a regular Wine Access sellout and member-favorite. But white wine long remained an undiscovered territory.

“The restaurants kept asking us, when are you going to make a white wine?” Pierre told us, as he poured another glass. We were enjoying a kicked-back summer afternoon at a Parisian bistro, pairing the Camille de Labrie Chardonnay with salmon rillettes, roast chicken, and a healthy serving of joie de vivre—it was the ideal setting for this wine.

To fashion the Chardonnay, Pierre and his partner Axelle tapped vineyards on the north side of the Languedoc, where the stony soils give this wine its riverbed minerality. They married that tension with grapes from plots north of Bordeaux near the Charente border, where grapes with depth and exotic-fruit flair thrive in the clay soils and Atlantic influence.

Finished in stainless steel tanks for purity, with 10% in French oak barrels for an added layer of complexity, it’s the ideal white wine steal. Consider how much you’d like to buy, then double it—because there might not be seconds.