Domaine Louis Boillot Volnay Les Grands Poisots, Cote de Beaune, France

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The 2010 Volnay Les Grands Poisots is a wine of extraordinary finesse. Silky, ripe tannins support black cherries, flowers, mint and licorice in this exotic, richly textured Volnay. This is unusually big, but also very nicely balanced by the freshness of the year. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2025. The 2010 vintage was not especially kind to Louis Boillot. The December 2009 frost wiped out the vineyard Boillot used for his Bourgogne, so naturally that wine was not made. The Fixin yields were tiny (just one barrel) and that wine was blended into the Cote de Nuits Villages. Overall yields were down 40-50%, although some parcels were hit even harder. The Caillerets, Croix Noires and Cherbaudes were down 50% and the Pommard was down 60%. The harvest started on September 22 and lasted about a week. The wines were aged in 25-30% new oak. Malos were very slow and were not finished until September 2011, quite late even by standards of the year. On a much more positive note, the wines themselves are fabulous and deserve serious attention. Unfortunately, the 2010 Pommard Les Croix Noires and Chambolle-Musigny Beaux Bruns were too reduced to evaluate, so I will have to wait for another opportunity to taste those wines. I will report on the 2009s in the April issue.Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990

The 2009 Volnay Les Grands Poisots presents bright red fruit on a wiry, energetic frame. This shows lovely focus and minerality through to the vibrant finish. It is an excellent wine at this level. Anticipated maturity: 2014-2024. Louis Boillot remarked that he and his wife Ghislaine Barthod were the first to harvest in 2009, but the last in 2008. In 2009 Boillot was concerned with losing the singular expression of site, hence his decision to pick on the early side. The 2009s were made from 100% destemmed fruit, as is the custom here. New oak reached a maximum of 25-30%. Boillot is among the growers who prefers the 2008s to the 2009s, which he describes as more faithful and transparent to site.Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990

From old vines in a non-cru site below Les Brouillards and among his last-harvested wines of the vintage, Boillot’s 2008 Volnay Les Grands Poisots is saturated with tart blackberry fruit, mineral salts, and cyanic cherry pit piquancy; a bit lean but with impressive grip and emerging meat broth and mineral character; and likely to be worth following for at least 5-6 years. Louis Boillot’s 2008s – all but three recently racked to tank when I tasted them in February, and due to have been bottled between April and June depending in part on the sensory evolution of their prominent acidity – represent one of those vintage collections that reminds one of the virtues of typical wines from two or more decades ago: restrained, a bit youthfully tart and tight, but back by admirable extract and energy, and likely to reward cellaring for at least the better part of a decade. Having described this collection as something of a throwback, I must note that Boillot said by the time he finished picking on October 4 his remaining fruit was already at 13.5% potential alcohol – riper than in 2007 – and only a few 2008 vintage lots in his entire cellar were chaptalized. The vintage reminds him of 1996 in terms of its acidity, but of the long under-rated 1972s overall. “I bottled a lot of magnums in 2008,” Boillot says with a confident twinkle in his eye. Unfortunately, time constraints precluded by tasting the 2007s from this cellar.Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990