The Comte Armand 2008 Volnay leads with tart fresh cherry and ginger spice, a sense of fruit skin chew, tactile pungency, and chalk lending invigorating length to a refreshing if relatively spare Pinot. (Leroux’s holdings in Volnay were all north of the hail’s path.) I imagine this is worth giving 2-3 years in bottle and then enjoying it over a similar period. Benjamin Leroux experienced the latest picking of his career in 2008 (not commencing until September 29) and second earliest in 2007 (commencing August 30, but then with fits and starts). As he was the first to bring up, though, the former would have been deemed “normal” two decades or more ago. “For all the difficulties we had in the vineyards,” he remarked, “in the end 2008 was easy to harvest, since the prolonged north wind took care of the triage. In fact, we did more triage in the cellar in 2009 than in 2008. And, like 2007, the vinification was not complicated. The yields, though, were down in 2008 to a mere 20 hectoliters per hectare, except in the Clos des Epeneaux, where we got 25.” The 2008s here were in tank awaiting bottling when I tasted them in mid-April – having at last finished malo-lactic conversion in autumn – all but one having only recently been racked from barrel. (For wines and news of Leroux’s negociant project, see my notes under the heading “Leroux.”) A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet (various importers); fax 011-333-80-24-29-70