2005 Volnay Fremiets

Meaty and salty from the first whiff, the d’Angerville 2005 Volnay Fremiet proceeds to emphasize the dark side of 2005, with bitter herbs and black fruit, smoke, roasted meat and coffee, but comes to the palate wearing its tannic structure in an obvious, slightly drying fashion. Meaty and savory in the finish, it still fails to resolve a certain hardness, hopefully simply a legacy of recent racking. (Otherwise, its poor showing today vis a vis the premier cru cuvee would be inexplicable.) The late Jacques d’Angerville’s son Guillaume and long-time wine making collaborator and brother-in-law Renaud de Villette can boast a superb collection of 2005s, but an equally apt tribute to the legacy of the late Marquis are the odds-beating results they bottled from 2004, when to the universal difficulties of that vintage were added the ravages of hail it visited on Volnay. The 2005s fermented with pump-overs but no punch-downs and exhibit formidable underlying structure yet pure fruit and early, flattering textural development. Importer: Diageo Chateau and Estate Wines Company, New York, NY; tel. (212) 419-1400

Good red-ruby. Aromas of dark cherry, chocolate, coffee and licorice, with a hint of medicinal austerity. Strong on the attack, then sweet and spicy but youthfully closed in the middle. With aeration, this showed expressive, juicy red berry flavors. Finishes with very good length. This parcel is near the Pommard border but the wine is very Volnay in character.

Cask sample. Tense, exciting, so true and tensile and vibrating. Lots of oak! But it should all come right in the end to judge from the rest of this stable. (JR)