2020 Volnay Village

“It was a hard season," winemaker Paul Zanetti told me when I visited Comte Armand in the heart of Pommard, opposite the church. “It was very warm, for sure. I go on holiday at the end of July every year. I just wanted to come back and check the vineyard at the beginning of August, and I could see the leaves beginning to fall. In one week the vineyard had changed completely. I had never seen it like this, and I knew we had to be ready [to harvest] in two weeks. The wines are all above 14.5° even though we started picking on August 24. I can feel the impact of the wall around the clos when you compare the Clos des Epeneaux with other vineyards. It was a vintage where you had to really reflect. We did a cold maceration. The yeasts found it difficult to finish the fermentation, but I did not add any cultured yeast – it just meant we had to have a four-week maceration. We did some punch-down as the skin was so ripe. In the end, I cropped at around 25hl/ha, though that’s more than in 2021 at 18hl/ha. Maybe I will do a longer barrel maturation.” This was a fine set of wines, the hidden gem being the overlooked Volnay Fremiets, which this year challenges the supremacy of the Pommard Clos des Epeneaux.