Domaine Joseph Voillot Volnay Vieilles Vignes 2022

The Volnay Vieilles Vignes is Domaine Voillot's most complete expression of its home village — and for those working their way up the range, it is the wine that most clearly establishes what makes Volnay so singular among Burgundy's red wine appellations. The blend is drawn from eight parcels totalling nearly 4.5 acres, with vines averaging 50 years of age, the main volume coming from the lieux-dits of Famines, Gigotte, Pasquier, Grands Poisots and Petits Poisots. The terroir ranges from the Poisots and Gigottes — with La Gigotte sitting just below the premier crus — to Les Paquiers with its deeper soils, through to Les Lurets on the Meursault side: lower-slope gravelly silty soils of some depth, containing Bathonian limestone scree, with plantings dating back to 1930, 1946 and 1973. Everything is hand harvested with strict sorting in the vineyard; grapes are destemmed, given a 12 to 14 day cold soak before fermentation with native yeasts only, and aged with no more than 10 to 15% new oak. 

A slightly more elegant nose of red and dark berry fruit trimmed in earth and stone notes, both of which continue onto rich, textured and delicious medium-bodied flavours that deliver fine length — the whole wine possessed of the lifted cool red cherry and fine structure that is Volnay's calling card. Beautiful balance with delicate floral notes, bramble, small berries — cherry and acidulated raspberry — with spice on the finish: a priority purchase for lovers of fine and complex wines. This is a village Volnay of genuine pedigree, assembled from parcels that in lesser hands would be selling as premier cru, and priced as though the domaine has not entirely noticed how much the world has come to appreciate what Volnay does