The 2015 Volnay 1er Cru Les Pitures has a modest bouquet with red cherries and crushed strawberry, a pleasant grey slate scent tucked just underneath and lending tension. The palate is tensile, brisk and conservative, perhaps more like a Pommard in some ways, and it just needs to develop more persistence on the finish so that it can rank alongside the superior Taillepieds.

The 2014 Volnay 1er Cru les Pitures has a crisp, redcurrant and raspberry scented bouquet, rustic but charming. The palate is well balanced with chalky tannin, plenty of crisp red fruit with a structured, almost foursquare finish. It needs to just flesh out a little, but it should do so by the time of bottling.

A more deeply pitched array of plum, dark berries, earth and even a hint of the sauvage is also framed in just enough wood to notice. There is good richness to the muscular and stony flavors that possess good power, indeed this is almost robust in character while delivering fine depth and length. This is not an elegant Volnay but it doesn't lack for concentration or character.

A more complex nose of both red and dark berries that evidence additional notes of spice, earth and floral hints. The racy, intense and focused medium-bodied flavors exude a fine bead of minerality on the mildly austere and drying finish. This is certainly very pretty but the balance is clearly not perfect.

From white chalky soils that Blair believes should really be planted with Chardonnay, the 2012 Volnay 1er Cru Les Pitures is slightly deeper in color that his other 2012s. The nose is full and complete with red cherries, light strawberry and a touch of raspberry, the oak needing longer than the domaine’s other 2012s to fully integrate. The palate is tannic with a firm backbone, perhaps more Pommard in style than Volnay, adorned with a linear, strict finish. Very fine. “How many English-speaking proprietors are there in Burgundy?” I ask winemaker Blair Pithol as he reaches with his pipette into a barrel of his excellent Chassagne-Montrachet. He pauses to think. The only name that enters his mind is the same as mine, David Clark, and he is just about to depart the region for pastures new. Tucked just behind the electrical generators near the A6 artery to Chablis, Blair is a foreigner, one that was bewitched by wine during the 1980s when he worked as a political and financial journalist. Instead of merely collecting and drinking wine, he took his passion to its final conclusion and became one of the few outsiders to tend the land, encouraged by the likes of friends such as vigneron Patrice Rion, with whom he worked a harvest back in 1999. Since then he has turned a tractor shed into the small, cozy winery we are standing in today. It remains a small operation, Blair seeming to control every facet of creating his wines, fastidious down to every last detail. I have to confess that it was somewhat of a novelty listening to Blair pronouncing his cuvees with that distinctive American southern drawl. It infers an American influence on the style of his wines, but on the contrary, they are resolutely classic in style: pale hues, minimal use of new oak and several mentions of that abstract, yet fundamental notion of “transparency.” Eschewing all herbicides and chemicals in the vineyard, Blair explained that he does not pick according to sugar measurements, wishing to capture that all-important acidity in his wines. He works in the winery in a more oxidative style, which he believes helps counter premature oxidation, dispensing with it before, not after, bottling. Though he is against acidification, he does chaptalize when necessary but refrained from doing so in 2012, when he commenced the harvest on September 18 . These wines were tasted in barrel in their final form and are due to be bottled in May. Readers should note that one or two were too reductive to assess professionally at the time of my visit in September 2013. I have to say, I found a lot to like in Blair’s wines. His 2012s are finely crafted, nuanced and pure, really nailing the “pinote” in his wines and expressing each terroir in detail, without denuding the wines of fruit. They come strongly recommended. Importer: Becky Wasserman Selections (Le Serbet) and through various US importers (see www.leserbet.com for full list.)