2008 Volnay Brouillards

Boillot’s 2008 Volnay Les Brouillards allied dark berries and fruit pits with chalk and peat, clinging with impressive tenacity if also a bit of gum-numbing tannin. Firm and a touch austere like so many of the wines in this collection, it evinces clean meatiness and decisive minerality but I would want to taste this again after a year or two from bottle to get a better read on its potential. The potential previously displayed by these 60-70 year old vines prompts me to make allowance here for the possibility that recent racking might have set this wine somewhat on edge and that it will pick-up short term. 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