2006 Pommard

Boillot describes 2007 as a fruity year-"a good vintage to drink rapidly." He told me he vinified to make flattering wines, rather than to extract tannins, keeping fermentation temperatures from rising above 30oC and doing very little punching down of the cap. He also picked very early, beginning on August 20, bringing in a small crop of what he described as "ripe grapes, with rot just beginning to appear. We did not have thick skins, and thus we needed to pick before the skins withered and the grapes lost their potential." The higher the sugars went, the more the rot increased, said Boillot, who told me that grape sugars in his Volnay Roncerets and Pommard Jarollieres were 13.5%. The pHs in 2007 were in the 3.48 to 3.55 range-higher than in '06 and '05 but still not particularly elevated. Still, Boillot prefers 2006 for its greater depth. (Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL) Also recommended: Volnay (86).