Rossignol’s 2007 Volnay Ronceret – from a tiny cru underneath Champans, and as such at quite low elevation – displays cooked red raspberry underlain by more prominent tannin than others of his wines this vintage. Tart rhubarb, salt, smoky black tea, tobacco, and white pepper offer distinct invigoration – not to mention complexity – in a finish one might mistake for that of a 2008. But this is a slightly raw, rustic Pinot. Rossignol thinks it’s “l(fā)ooking for its balance,” and I would give it 4-6 years to do so before running out of patience. Meantime, properly employed, it is sure to prove satisfying.
Having convinced Nicolas Rossignol to let me taste in the 2008 vintage the entirety of his collection – expanded by the “re-union” of various family members’ parcels large and small to encompass, from 2009, 32 appellations! – I ran into a snag. In his frigid cellar – so cold yet in March that we met to taste at his house in Beaune – many wines (two Pernands; three lots of Pommard; Volnay Fremiets ?) were still stuck undergoing (some barely beginning) malo-lactic conversion! Some growers would opine that outstanding results cannot possibly issue from such freakishly retarded young wines, but my experience with what is clearly the most exciting collection I have yet experienced from this young vigneron suggests otherwise. There was a continuum on display among the wines I tasted, from ones that had only just finished malo and were still loaded with CO2, to more finished wines, and they were virtually all excellent. Rossignol sees aspects of each of the three vintages that preceded it in 2008, as well as what he calls “the finesse of 2002.” Potential alcohols were in the 12.5 to low 13s and a significant share of the wines was lightly chaptalized, though not for the sake of alcoholic body per se. For all of the hail in his general sector this July, only Rossignol’s Santenay “and a touch of the Caillerets” were hit. He claims that in 2008 he did not have to exercise rigorous sorting in the cellar but only on the vines, and he persisted in the inclusion of stems and whole clusters (“vendange entier”) in certain cuvees, an inclusion I have tried to mentioned where applicable in my tasting notes. By contrast, his 2007s – which he calls “wines for drinking, not tasting” – were all de-stemmed. (For further details on Rossignol and his approach to Pinot, see my reports in issues 171 and 176.)
A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet (various importers); fax 011-333-80-24-29-70
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