2006 Volnay Les Pitures

Good bright medium red. Deep cherry and smoke aromas, with a floral element emerging with air. Rich, broad and serious; at once full and weightless, thanks to healthy vibrant acidity, which frames and carries the dark cherry, mineral and menthol flavors. Finishes long and lively, relying more on its acids than its tannins for structure. A lovely Volnay.

Medium red with ruby highlights. Pure, precise aroma of red cherry lifted by a floral element (there was less rot here, noted Lydie Boillot). Suave and sweet, with a juicy quality and a light touch as well as lovely purity of fruit. Finishes with broad, fairly serious tannins and very good aromatic lift. Very Volnay.

This year's rather somber Boillot 2006 Volnay Pitures – from just north of the Clos des Ducs – offers ripe, diverse red fruits allied to smoky, toasted nut, black tea, and otherwise dark forest soil notes. It finishes with persistence, but incorporating a certain roughness of tannin. More grip and concentration does not necessarily mean a superior overall performance, and here I would plan to revisit the wine in 2010 before making any longer-term commitment. ||Jean-Marc Boillot started harvesting reds (which constitute nearly half of his acreage) on September 22, immediately after finishing (in a great hurry) with his whites; using all 60 pickers he had in place; and finishing in 72 hours. Already by that time, a significant share of fruit had to be culled out for rot, while another share was unripe, so the yields ended up a pathetic 18 hectoliters per hectare. He adapted his vinification to the material by trying to be even gentler than in 2005, albeit for a different reason. A regimen of 40-50% new wood was maintained from 2005, though, and while I cannot say that any wines were overtly woody, given the fragile fruit and coarse tannin structure of several in this collection, I have to wonder about the advisability of that approach. Wine Advocate.December, 2009