1999 Volnay

"Two thousand was very difficult," said Jean-Marc Boillot. "We waited until September 18 to pick, then needed a strict selection on our triage table. This vintage was an appropriate punishment for those who work badly, following the easy year of 1999." Boillot added that the vintage favored Beaune and Pommard over Volnay, which produced atypically tough wines in 2000 despite the shorter cuvaison carried out here. Still, he noted that even the 2000 Volnays will be rounder wines after the bottling. Boillot '99s are highly successful. Do they perhaps resemble the 1990s, I asked him. "The '99s are silky wines of great richness, but also elegance. In comparison, the 1990s are almost too structured, too robust." (Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL)

Boillot describes 1999 as "a year of lowish acidity, but slightly higher than that of '98, and with more sugar." The young vines, he added, were more stunted by sun stress in August, with the result that this fruit is not as complex or harmonious as the grapes produced by older vines. Yields tend to be moderate here, even in a copious year like '99, as Boillot prunes short and then does a subsequent green pruning, despite the risk of spring frost. He believes that green harvesting in mid-summer is counterproductive; rather than resulting in smaller quantities of juice, "it almost risks dilution in most years; in 2000, for example, a vendange verte caused the remaining grapes to swell even more." Boillot bled off about 5% of the juice in a number of his '99 cuvees but keeps saignee moderate for fear of getting dry tannins. Boillot also did well in '98, though he noted that "the higher you get in the hierarchy of terroir in '98, the more noble the tannins are." (Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL)