Tasted with Guillaume d’Angerville in Volnay, 09 November 2016.
Domaine Marquis d’Angerville
Rue de Mont
21190 Volnay
Tel: +33 3 80 21 61 75
www.domainedangerville.fr
Guillaume on 2016:
“Again it was a year of weather disruption – I’m convinced that ‘global-warming’ is the wrong phrase, ‘climate-disruption’ seems a better fit. Again it was a very mild winter – we hardly had minus temperatures, but then came frost on the 27 April – its 35 years since we had anything comparable – 1981.
“The frost was very localized; Clos des Ducs and other high parcels were hardly touched, indeed were abundant in crop, but anything below a certain altitude or curve of slope was badly damaged, for example, Fremiers, Champans, Caillerets and Angles all the bottom slopes were far from proper yields – even lower down the villages and regionals were almost completely destroyed. The final nail in the coffin was the frost our 1.05 hectares in Meursault-Santenots with only 2 barrels produced. Our older vines were harder hit, which is predictable, indeed understandable, but it was the sign for us to uproot and replant – we also did the same in a piece of Champans.
“We were very focused and the mildew didn’t take a hard hold, it certainly required more treatment than we would prefer but it was necessary, and the sanitary conditions of the grapes at harvest was very good.”
Guillaume on 2015:
“In 2015, again it was not a normal season. We started roughly in-line with 2014, so March was ahead, if not by much. April again nothing specific but at the beginning of May we had quite a bit of rain followed by very hot weather for the time of year – the plant growth really accelerated because of this – by the end of the month the plant was really ahead of a usual vintage.
“We try to find a mid-point of flowering and this was about the 2-3 of June. We actually harvested on the 4th September, 10 days earlier than 100 days. Mid-June brought quite some heavy rain, but from June 15th to August 1st – no rain. Fortunately a little rain finally came in that month – and it wasn’t wet enough to increase the risk of disease. Quite an odd season, but the thing to remember it should have been a solar vintage. Yields were not back to normal in 2015 – there was the drought following 3 years of hail – we didn’t make much more wine than the hailed vintage of 2014. In 2015 we had very dark colours which is unusual for us – we didn’t do anything for it, it’s a reflection of the solar season.
“People compare the vintage to 2005, but not me, it reminds me more of 2010.”
The wines…
“Old style again this year with cork.” Guillaume uses DIAM in the Jura. “We’ve had relatively limited issues with oxidation in the Meursault, so I’m not feeling compelled to change yet. No question it’s a safer solution, it gets rid of the bad news, but I think it limits the exceptional.”
Simply a great address – across the board – in 2015.
Ooh! very nice depth of aroma with a modest but engaging width, but there’s quite some aromatic concentration here. Mouth-filling, layered and with a fine balance. For a villages this is very high quality – bravo! An open-ended finish too!
One of the parcels is newer to the domaine, but the two parcels share a similar vine-age. ‘Side-by side, they seem very coherent.’
A higher toned fruit of more clarity and definition. Fresher, wider, less direct weight but certainly it plays more on the palate and is more complex versus the villages. Beautiful wine – if the finish of the villages is open-ended, this a long line of persistence. Wow!
Fremiets is almost always the first vineyard harvested by the domaine, followed by Caillerets.
Fresher, a more floral aromatic. Fresh, a little more drag from a modest tannin, mouth-watering flavour, more mineral, suggesting but not quite delivering salinity. More mineral and direct – just as good as the last if less for drinking today… dark fruit of wonderful purity.
Owned about 0.5 ha, was probably replanted about 98/99, then bought almost 0.2 ha which has quite old vines – no dates attached to those vines, but probably they are at least 50 years old. 2013 was the first vintage with the new vines. In Caillerets Dessus a little closer to volnay than the 60 Ouvrée’s gate.
A fresh nose of beautiful clarity. More energy and complexity in the mouth – lithe wine of movement and just the faintest edge of oak in this sample. Saline in the finishing flavours – like a clear stream. In terms of absolute interest, this a step up from the Fremiets.
2015 Volnay 1er Taillepieds
At the top of Taillepieds above the vines of de Montille – there’s quite some slope here – uprooted 1/3 of the parcel which was replanted in 2015, the rest are from 1970 or–so.
A wide and slightly wilder nose, a shade sauvage, slowly fills out in the glass, almost textured impression. Freshness and a fabulous floral width of fruit and flowers, this is really quite something…
2015 Volnay 1er Champans
Close to 4 hectares of vines in 2 parcels that are parallel and both go from the bottom to the top of the vineyard.
Deep, concentrated, almost brooding wine – not a sense of warmth, but certainly there is a mass of something lying in wait. Fine volume in the mouth, a beautiful core of freshness too – a fresh sweet halo of mouth-watering flavour. Less overtly complex today, no less a wine I think.
A fresh, squeaky-clean top note. Slowly like a distant waterfall the tops notes fall down and begin to open out a little – still a tight aromatic compared to some. Mass, but freshness, a gorgeous depth of floral fruit, some tannin here too, saline edged, a mouth-watering and ever wider growing finishing flavour. Just a little finishing tannin too. Bravo….
And let us not that there is white;
Normally the domaine finishes their harvest with Meursault, but this year it was the first picked – ‘there nothing special to separate the ripening of the reds and whites in 2015.’
2015 Meursault 1er Santenots
Classic, wide, fresh ginger-spiced aromas – very inviting. Like the reds here is lots of volume but rather with freshness not fat – only the villages Volnay tends to that. Plays over the palate well and offers the ginger spice, some floral notes and a little salinity in the finishing flavour. Textbook and excellent.