2012 Volnay Les Angles

(the crop was cut 60% by hail, according to Boillot): Bright red with ruby tones. Tight nose hints at black cherry and dark chocolate. Intensely flavored and high-pitched, with noteworthy purity to its flavors of black cherry, black raspberry and licorice. Boasts a supple texture but this will need time in bottle to open. Finishes with firm tannins, a hint of saline minerality and excellent fruit-driven length.

Atypically dark and hulking, the 2012 Volnay Les Angles bursts on the palate with an exotic concoction of blue/black fruit, smoke, violets and dark spices. The 2012 boasts serious depth and intensity, with persistent layers of minerality that are woven throughout. Menthol, pine, resin and a host of other balsamic-inflected notes add complexity as the fruit builds to a huge, imposing finish. The tannins need time to fully integrate.

The 2012 Volnay 1er Cru Les Angles comes from a 0.60-hectare parcel, the largest holding in the climat. The nose is very energetic and well defined – plenty of crisp, animated dark cherry and blueberry fruit here bounding about the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with gentle grip in the mouth. There is good substance, underpinned by quite rigid tannins, but there is plenty of dark berry fruit on the finish to suggest this is a long-term Volnay. Having tasted with his wife Ghislaine Barthod in the morning, I returned to the same address in the afternoon to see Louis Boillot. The domaine was established in 2002 when his father split the family domaine, Louis Boillot & Fils, between Louis and his brother Pierre. Henri Boillot is their cousin. It is an interesting set up: half the cellar reserved for Ghislaine’s wines and the other for her husband’s and whilst I have a great deal of experience with the former, I was less acquainted with Boillot’s. However I am glad that I did the time to sample through an impressive portfolio that were generally balanced, refined and skilfully expressed their terroir. In common with so many other producers, the affects of poor flowering, coulure and millerandage reduced yields. His Volnay Caillerets was reduced down to just half a barrel and in the case of his Pommard Village, down to a negligible three crates of grapes that were blended into the Bourgogne Rouge. Louis also rued the fact that the decreased total number of barrels meant that the ratio of new oak is a little higher than he might have liked, and therefore after vinifying in new oak he often transferred his wines into used oak after malo-lactic fermentations. Generally, this strategy worked and most of his 2012 did not exhibit excessive levels of wood. I would zone in on Louis’s exquisite Volnay wines that seemed to put the traumas of the growing season behind them, whilst the Nuits Saint Georges is exemplary. Importer: Sussex Wine and Rare Wine Company (CA) and several importers in the UK including Lay & Wheeler, Raeburn Fine Wine, Averys and Berry Brothers.