2010 Volnay Clos de la Barre

The 2010 Volnay Clos de la Barre is a huge, implosive wine loaded with fruit. This explosive Volnay bursts onto the palate with black cherries, tar, licorice, smoke and incense. The aromas and flavors take on a decidedly exotic quality as the wine sits in the glass. This is another wine with a bright future.

Bright medium red. Rocky aromas of wild red fruits, coffee and spices. Suave on entry, then tight and medicinal, even a bit tough, in the middle, but with a fine grain to the dark cherry flavor. A strong impression of minerally acidity intensifies the fruit and gives lift and perfume to the long, firmly tannic. The crop level from these very old vines was 25 hectoliters per hectare in 2010, according to assistant winemaker Frederic Barnier.

The 2010 Volnay Clos de la Barre is a huge, implosive wine loaded with fruit. This explosive Volnay bursts onto the palate with black cherries, tar, licorice, smoke and incense. The aromas and flavors take on a decidedly exotic quality as the wine sits in the glass. This is another wine with a bright future. Anticipated maturity: 2018-2028. I tasted an amazing range of 2010 reds at Jadot with long-term winemaker Jacques Lardiere and his successor Frederic Barnier. In order to make this large section of the report easier to read, I have broken up the wines into the Cote de Beaune and Cote de Nuits. Lardiere and Barnier told me they were quite worried about the prospects for the harvest upon their return from summer vacations in August, but the year was saved by a perfect September. Yields are down 25-50% because of the frost and cold weather earlier in the year, but overall quality is very high. Lardiere and Barnier also noted that early on it appeared that there would be a wide gap in quality between the Cote de Beaune and the Cote de Nuits, but over time that gap narrowed to some extent. Still, there is little question the vintage was more challenging in the Cote de Beaune because of a rainier summer and overall higher precipitation throughout the year. Importer: Kobrand Corp., Purchase, NY; tel. (914) 253-7756