VOLNAY

The 2016 Volnay Les Fremiets 1er Cru has a composed and harmonious bouquet with nicely integrated oak, perhaps just a little gamey in style although it does not dominate the overall aromatics. The palate is medium-bodied with chewy, quite firm tannin though coated with the fleshy fruit that one expects from a Volnay. I am not quite sure if the oak regime snugly fits the fruit profile. It seems to shave off too many edges on the finish, rending it simpler than it otherwise might have been. Perhaps bottle age will meliorate this Volnay since it certainly has good substance. Tasted blind at the 2016 Burgfest tasting in Burgundy. Drinking range: 2022 - 2042 Rating: 90 Neal Martin, www.vinous.com (Oct 2019)

A pungent nose of wood toast, menthol and reduction presently overwhelms the underlying fruit. The supple, sleek and precise medium weight flavors possess a lovely sense of underlying tension before concluding in a lingering and youthfully austere finish where a hint of bitter fruit pit surfaces. Drinking range: 2024 - Rating: 91 Allen Meadows, www.Burghound.com (Apr 2018)

(these vines are 25 to 50 years old; from whiter soil that typical yields a harder, more austere style of wine than the Chevrets): Medium red. More discreet and a bit more medicinal on the nose than the Chevrets. Juicy red berry flavors are lifted by spicy high notes but kept under wraps by salty minerality and a medicinal menthol aspect.. Boasts lovely lift and inner-mouth tension and finishes with very fine-grained tannins, but this very promising wine will require at least a few years of bottle aging to loosen up a bit. Rating: 91-93 Stephen Tanzer, www.vinousmedia.com (Jan 2018)