2003 Volnay

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)

Boillot's 2003s were in floating-top tanks in his cold garage (they had been racked for the first time in October), awaiting bottling before Christmas.Boillot acidified the musts lightly for the fermentations."Just a correction for the pHs, which allows the potassium to precipitate out of the wines," he explained."If acidification is done later, the tartaric acidity always exists next to the wine, rather than being absorbed."Boillot shortened his normal cold soak due to the percentage of dried grapes, then did a total of three punchdowns during the fermentation, compared to a normal two per day.Boillot told me that the terroir character came back faster with his 2003 whites, and that this was just beginning to happen to his reds at the time of my visit. Boillot began harvesting on August 23, and generally picked with potential alcohols in the 12.8% to 13.2% range.Yields ranged between 20 and 28 hectoliters per hectare, according to Boillot.(Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL)