2004 Volnay Pitures 1er Cru

"A medium-sized crop, a superb harvest, and easy-to-make wines," said Boillot about 2005. "Certainly one of the best red wine vintages I've ever made. The wines have very good fruit and acidity, and the tannins are silky." Boillot waited until March of 2006 to bottle his 2004s because he thought they needed the additional depth that a bit more elevage would bring. But he planned to bottle the 2005s earlier "because they're great the way they are." Incidentally, Boillot believes that the 2005s will always taste good and will never shut down dramatically in the bottle. The wines had been racked into stainless steel cuves a few weeks before my visit but Boillot had not yet decided whether they would be fined prior to bottling. (Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL) Also recommended: Volnay (86).

Lydie Boillot describes the 2004s as "fruity, with decent structure. The merchants are advising us against making wines that are too tannic because they're hard to sell. "To avoid extracting what she called negative aspects of the tannins, her father Jean-Marc carried out a slow maceration, beginning with a week-long pre-fermentation cold soak, then two punchdowns per day only for the first three days of the fermentation. Boillot uses a vibrating sorting table, then did a second trie by hand, as the fruit from Volnay Pitures, Pommard Saucilles and Pommard Rugiens was hard-hit by hail. In November I found the 2004s to be solid if a bit undemonstrative. The malos mostly finished in the spring, and the wines had been racked into tank in October. Lydie noted that the 2003s were bottled in April of 2005 and thought that most of these wines could be drunk in a year or two. Jean-Marc did not acidify the 2003 musts, but he did make barrel-by-barrel adjustments later on. (Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL)