Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
Juicy and tangy, with notes of bright raspberry and cherry; silky and balanced, fresh and long.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine takes a lot of swirling before showing some red cherry aromas. While the nose is reticent, the palate displays a concentrated expanse of rich red cherry, a little fleshy from its ripeness but still shot through with freshness. Fine tannins weave beautifully around the fruit with their tight mesh. The finish is bright and bold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Volnay 1er Cru Les Pitures offers up aromas of raspberries, plums, rose petals and sweet soil tones. Medium-bodied, bright and lively, it's fine-boned and mineral, with bright acids and powdery tannins. This is a pretty, perfumed Volnay that demonstrates what a timely harvest and judicious winemaking could achieve in 2018.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
On the hillsides between Pommard and Meursault, Volnay is one of two villages in the Côte de Beaune of Burgundy that is recognized for its extraordinary Pinot Noir. Pommard is the other; the rest of the villages are most known for some of the most exceptional Chardonnay in the world. While Volnay Pinot Noir tends to be light in color and more delicate than that of Pommard, they typically stand on par with each other in regards to quality and demand.
Volnay can’t claim any Grands Crus vineyards but more than half of it has achieved Premier Cru status. Volnay Premiers Crus vineyards stretch across the entire village from northeast to southwest, abutting and actually falling “into” Meursault. Where they merge is a vineyard called Les Santenots. Pinot Noir grows in this Meursault Premier Cru but since that village is most associated with stellar whites, the Pinot Noir from Les Santenots, takes the name Volnay Santenots. Immediately above it are Volnay’s other prized Premier Cru, Le Cailleret, Champans, Clos des Chênes and Le Cailleret.
Volnay Pinot Noir are earthy with red or blue fruit. Aromas such as smoke, herbs, forest, cocoa and spice are common and on the palate they are gorgeous and concentrated with finesse but won’t truly charm you without some age.