2011 Volnay Caillerets 1er Cru

Nicolas Rossignol, who bears more than a passing resemblance to the actor Jeremy Renner, has totally changed his winemaking methods since the last time I visited him more than a decade ago. There's no more cold maceration, no more heating of the wine at the end of the fermentation, no more use of delestage for extraction. He typically vinifies with a portion of whole clusters, doing what he calls a "negative sorting" to isolate the best grapes for this treatment. And vinification is gentler across the board today. Rossignol now does no more than two punchdowns per day "because I have riper grapes" (and only four in total for most of his cuvees in vintage 2012) and does not crush his grapes. Rossignol describes 2011 as "a nice balance between 2010 and 2008, combining the natural elegance of 2010 and the freshness of 2008." He went on: "You can drink the wines in six months or in ten years. They can be enjoyed early but the real expression of terroir will come with age." He began harvesting at the end of August, with sugars levels in the 11.5% to 12.2% range. "It was the first year since 2002 in which I had to chaptalize," he told me. Rossignol also made some very good 2010s, but he had to move all of his barrels from Volnay to his new cellar in Beaune, and he thought that the serious shaking up of the lees "bruised the wines" and cost them some of their early clarity." As a result, he had to filter them prior to bottling last March and April. At the least, these wines will require time in bottle to regroup. (A Becky Wasserman Selection; importers include Pas Mal Selections, www.selectionpasmal.wordpress.com and Favorite Brands, www.wix.com)