2008 Volnay Fremiets

Good deep red. Black cherry, licorice and herbs on the nose, given punch by strong peppery spices. Sweet, supple and nicely concentrated if a bit less complex and high-pitched than the 2009 version. Lovely black cherry fruit displays a tangy sweetness. The very long finish features dusty, fine-grained tannins. The crop level here was just 18 hectoliters per hectare, according to Boillot.

A strikingly Cornas-like nose of raw beef liver and cinnamon-tinged ripe cherry marks the nose of Boillot’s 2008 Volnay Les Fremiets. Firmly tannic but fine-grained, its bright red fruits mingling with peat, clean meatiness, and chalk, this is another handsomely lean, invigorating, and intriguing Boillot Pinot that should keep for a decade or more and will best be given some years in the bottle before opening. In 2008, Henri Boillot both expanded his domaine and became ambitious qua negociant with Pinot. In the latter capacity, he looks for contracts where he can exercise control over the farming, so that, for example, all of the 2008s – he reports – were cropped at less than 20 hectoliters per hectare and picked very late. Unorthodoxly (for Burgundy, at least) Boillot pressed many of his reds early to let them complete fermentation in barrel. His malos were late but not dramatically so, finishing in August, and most of the wines were bottled in February, a few earlier. (I tasted several 2007 reds from Boillot, but too early-on to adequately assess, and I have not had time to revisit that collection.) Various importers

Dark red-ruby. Spicy aromas of dark plum, currant and chocolate. More spicy but less fat than the Chevrets, conveying an impression of firmer acidity. An enticing black cherry perfume emerges as the wine opens in the glass. Supple, elegant, beautifully balanced wine with no heaviness, and very long on the aftertaste.