2008 Volnay Santenots du Milieu

Sweetly ripe cherry and raspberry in Leroy’s 2008 Volnay Santenots du Milieu, are overlain with sweet, smoky, machine oil-like pungency as well as decadently floral and faintly fecal notes that suggest brettanomyces, and will render this wine controversial. A bright burst of vintage-typical fresh red raspberry and cherry juiciness emerges at mid-palate, where an uncanny balance of incipient creaminess and brightness is also suggested, but there is a very slight tendency toward dryness in an otherwise pungently-persistent and sweetly-ripe finish. Having a chance to taste these wines but once, I shall only voice as a suspicion that this is one Leroy Pinot liable to stray from the straight and narrow. Lalou Bize-Leroy reports average 2008 Pinot Noir yields of 13 hectoliters per hectare, almost absurdly tiny even by her singular standards. Malos were a bit later than usual but were finished by summer, and the wines bottled – as usual – in December. Yet – also as usual – if their development was thereby in any way stunted, you certainly won’t detect it in the bottle today! The best of these display a sense of transparency; levity; and – even when rich and head-spinningly complex – a sheer sense of refreshment and invigoration that I have seldom encountered in other great wines from these sister estates. (Please note that my account of the complete 2007 red collection at Leroy was published in issue #189.) Importer: Martine’s Wines. Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-040