From just below Champans - and a site consisting in large part of the pebbly erosion from that site - the Rossignol 2006 Volnay Ronceret smells of blackberry, wood smoke, vanilla, licorice, leather, and dried fungus. A correspondingly sinister, bittersweet, fugal, carnal character asserts itself on the palate, along with deep notes of carob and dark chocolate. The tannins here are refined and rounded, and the multiple layers of flavor are conveyed to a long finish by just enough primary juiciness and a stimulating sense of electrical energy. This site excelled in 2003, too, notes Rossignol, because it can literally take the midsummer heat, and its fruit permitted fermentation vendange entier. I imagine this will be worth following for the better part of a decade.
"Excellent ripeness came late, but then very quickly," reports Nicolas Rossignol, who began harvested his 2006s already in mid September. "Volnay tends to be precocious, anyway," he adds, "and you have to consider the intensive way in which I've been working the vines lately, with very low yields and intensive canopy management. I wanted to preserve freshness and equilibrium." Rossignol reported that his intention had been to bottle his 2006s correspondingly early to preserve their fruit and refinement, but the mid-winter of 2007-2008 was so bitterly cold that they seized-up, and in the end he permitted them what, for him, is a normal 18 months' elevage. Deeming his fruit - which largely weighed in between 12 and just over 13% potential alcohol - to be healthy, he employed whole clusters and stems selectively, depending on how he thought the technique fit the particular appellation. Once again, I was unable to taste more than half of the roughly two dozen Rossignol's wines - traversing five communes - and he declined to show me this year's Fremiets or Taillepieds on the grounds of their respective three- and two-barrel total production. (That said, Rossignol very generously introduced me by means of a sample to the wines of his neighbor Jean-Marc Boulet - see under that name for my notes.) For further details on Rossignol and his approach to Pinot, see my report in issue 171.
Importers: Martine's Wines. Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-0400; also a Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet (various importers); fax 011-333-80-24-29-70
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