There was hail in Volnay in 2001 – some producers declassified their best wines – I don’t remember how badly d’Angerville’s Clos des Ducs was affected, if at all, but this is not up to their usual overachieving standard – I respectfully suggest that it was also a candidate for a different label…
2001 d’Angerville, Volnay 1er Clos des Ducs
A good medium, medium-plus colour. It’s an ever-changing nose, though not particularly in a good way: it starts a little diffuse and harsh, then there is a period of absolute red-fruited Volnay beauty followed again by diffuse and slightly green notes. You go through this cycle each time you top up your glass! In the mouth the fruit has a very nice perfume, reasonable density and there is some real persistence of flavour – yet the overall effect is slightly tart and certainly has a little ungainly tannin. It contains some great Volnay references, but it’s far from a great Clos des Ducs…
Rebuy – No
There are 2 responses to “d’angerville 2001 volnay 1er clos des ducs”
I rarely will write off an entire vintage, but as far as Volnay 2001 is concerned, it is difficult not to do so. I know of no wines from the commune in 2001 that are up to par, including those paragons like the d’Angerville and Lafarge range of villages and 1ers. Try as they might, even the best just could not transcend the bad hand nature dealt them. It happens less frequently now than it did a couple of decades ago, but now and then there is still a growing season that is simply a disaster. 2001 in Volnay seems to be one of those. No doubt someone will correct me if I’m just plain wrong.
Hard fro me to say ‘Chambolle’ – if I’m honest without ever intending to do so, I seem to have insulated myself from 01 Volnay, this Ducs being the first that I have a memory of. It would work sort-of okay as a villages wine, maybe even a ‘no-name’ 1er, but it’s a long way from a real Ducs and the expectations that come with both the label and the price. I think that the domaine lost more than haf their crop as it was, but I personally would still have declassified this.
I don’t know what CC drank in his recently updated book (17.5), but my bottle showed mere flashes of what he described – perhaps it’s on a fast ‘downhill track’…
I tasted an awful lot of 2001 Volnay during Les Grands Jours way back when, and have followed some of them in he ensuing years. As you say, when Clos des Ducs barely registers as a decent villages or mediocre 1er, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I recall tasting from barrel chez Lafarge and trying mightily not to be completely underwhelmed by the wines, at the same time I listened to Michel and Frederic describe their heroic efforts to make lemonade (or more precisely, good wine) with the lemons the weather had dealt them. There were places the sun shone on the growers in 2001 — Gevrey and Vosne and Chambolle surely yielded some wonderful surprises — but Volnay, sadly, nyet, nein, non, nopity nope.
I am more than willing to relax in the shade of your tough work and look elsewhere – love the making something from lemons btw!