2015 Yvon Clerget - Volnay Les Caillerets 1er Cru
Market price
Buying options
Tasting notes
The 2015 Volnay Les Caillerets 1er Cru has a very pure, pastille-like bouquet that does not quite translate its terroir , seeming perhaps a little generic in style, and then deteriorates and becomes rather Port-like. The palate is well balanced and seems to have undergone a longer skin maceration than its peers. Quite open and ripe and velvety smooth, with some blue fruit/cassis toward the finish that feels a little out of place. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting.
Critic scores
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
Neal Martin
More reviews and scores
The 2015 Volnay 1er Cru Les Caillerets is the king of the cellar chez Clerget in this vintage, offering up a ripe but bright nose of Griotte cherry, ripe plums, dried flowers and caramelized citrus peel. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, bright and vibrant, with excellent depth and a tight-knit core, framed by fine-grained, chalky tannins that lend a stony quality to the lingering finish. This is a lovely Caillerets from some of the domaine’s best vine material.
(from millerandé 80-year-old vines): Dark red-ruby. Highly nuanced, soil-driven nose combines dark raspberry, cherry, milk chocolate, spices and earth. Juicy, savory wine with serious richness and depth of flavor leavened by energy. This impressive and rather powerfully structured wine (it may be close to 14% alcohol, according to Clerget) is less harmonious in the early going than the Clos du Verseuil and its tannins are a bit youthfully clenched. Clerget also made a single barrel of Volnay Les Champans, which he bottled entirely in magnums.
The personality of the year seems especially evident in the 2015 Volnay Caillerets. Dark, pliant and dense, the Caillerets is bursting at the seams with fruit intensity and richness, but offers less in the way of site specificity. Exotic floral and spice notes build into the dense, explosive finish. In 2015, the Caillerets is superb, but it needs to be appreciated on its own terms.