2005 Domaine Lucien Boillot et Fils Volnay Les Caillerets 1er Cru

Boillot’s 2005 Volnay Caillerets leads with ripe black currant and raw meat suggestions, saturating the palate with sweet, brash, dark-berry fruit, but quickly reveals a pithy concentration of stones and chalk beneath. Sleek and refined in texture, this unobtrusively harbors plenty of tannins for 8-10 years in the cellar. Faintly disembodied notes of caramel and resin betray the oak a bit, but these should integrate given this wine’s formidable raw fruit intensity. Layers of fruit, meat and chalk are tightly packed into a penetrating finish. Also recommended: 2005 Fixin (unknown; 85-87). Having moved from Volnay to a newly-expanded facility he shares with his wife, Ghislaine Barthod, Louis Boillot fields a large and geographically diverse range of generally impressive, pure-fruited Pinots. (In rating them, I have left some leeway to allow for my previous unfamiliarity with Louis Boillot’s wines.) Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990.