2021 Volnay Village

Guillaume d’Angerville, surely the most dapper man in the Côte d’Or, welcomes me at his winery in Volnay to guide me through his 2021s together with winemaker François Duvivier.

“The beginning was fairly benign, even though it was warm in February and March, too warm,” d’Angerville explains. “The vines thought it was May, so bud break was early in March. Then there were the infamous three nights of frost, very different from 2016. That year brought cold air down the hill, so regional and village crus were hit, whereas, in 2021, frost damage was everywhere. We lost as much in Clos des Duc as our regional red. Overall, we lost 75% of the volume, and this time, it was much greater in value terms. The snow was particularly damaging. Afterwards, it was a difficult May, not too bad, but there was a lot of rain in June and July. I believe the vines benefitted from biodynamics which is maybe less crucial than in drier years. We had no rot or mildew - 20 years ago, the vines would have been destroyed. This was very surprising. The air circulation was helped from the coulure resulting from the bad flowering - a blessing in disguise. We started picking on 20 September and stopped immediately as it started raining, so we restarted in the afternoon. The rest of the harvest was OK. The small volumes meant we had to decide whether to mix climats. We are not used to micro-cuvées as we have larger holdings. We had to vinify the Cailleret in a [retooled] barrel as we have only the volume to fill one. The Clos des Angles is only two barrels instead of 10 or 12. We decreased the percentage of new wood: in Champans and Clos des Ducs, it is just 5%, and we did not touch the wine, so there is no chaptalisation. The alcoholic degrees are between 12.5% and 13.0% to preserve the vintage’s character. The regional cuvées will be bottled shortly. Normally we finish in late April, but we might bottle a month earlier.”