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.
Importers: A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet; fax 011- 333-80-24-29-70 and Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel. (205) 980-8802
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