Domaine Louis Boillot Cotes de Nuits-Villages, Burgundy, France

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The 2010 Cote de Nuits Villages is a gorgeous wine laced with dark red fruit, flowers, spices and licorice. It shows quite a bit of depth and sheer stuffing at this level, backed up by the clean, vibrant minerality that is the hallmark of the vintage. In 2010 the Cote de Nuits Villages includes one barrel of Fixin, which was too small a production to justify being bottled on its own. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2018. The 2010 vintage was not especially kind to Louis Boillot. The December 2009 frost wiped out the vineyard Boillot used for his Bourgogne, so naturally that wine was not made. The Fixin yields were tiny (just one barrel) and that wine was blended into the Cote de Nuits Villages. Overall yields were down 40-50%, although some parcels were hit even harder. The Caillerets, Croix Noires and Cherbaudes were down 50% and the Pommard was down 60%. The harvest started on September 22 and lasted about a week. The wines were aged in 25-30% new oak. Malos were very slow and were not finished until September 2011, quite late even by standards of the year. On a much more positive note, the wines themselves are fabulous and deserve serious attention. Unfortunately, the 2010 Pommard Les Croix Noires and Chambolle-Musigny Beaux Bruns were too reduced to evaluate, so I will have to wait for another opportunity to taste those wines. I will report on the 2009s in the April issue.Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990

The 2009 Cote de Nuits Villages, from vines in Brochon, reveals gorgeous fleshiness in its dark red fruit. This is a beautifully composed, articulate wine with notable depth and intensity. Tasted from barrel. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2020. Louis Boillot remarked that he and his wife Ghislaine Barthod were the first to harvest in 2009, but the last in 2008. In 2009 Boillot was concerned with losing the singular expression of site, hence his decision to pick on the early side. The 2009s were made from 100% destemmed fruit, as is the custom here. New oak reached a maximum of 25-30%. Boillot is among the growers who prefers the 2008s to the 2009s, which he describes as more faithful and transparent to site.Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990

Smoke-wreathed, tart but bright red currant and purple plum inform the nose and palate of Louis Boillot’s 2008 Cotes De Nuits-Villages (from a site in Brochon next to Fixin’s Clos du Chapitre). One of several exceptions in this collection for still having been in barrel (not assembled to tank) in February, this may well gain harmony and charm from its additional stay there and will certainly be appealingly sappy and pungent over at least the nest 3-4 years. A village Fixin, also still in cask when I tasted it in February, was lean and chalky. Louis Boillot’s 2008s – all but three recently racked to tank when I tasted them in February, and due to have been bottled between April and June depending in part on the sensory evolution of their prominent acidity – represent one of those vintage collections that reminds one of the virtues of typical wines from two or more decades ago: restrained, a bit youthfully tart and tight, but back by admirable extract and energy, and likely to reward cellaring for at least the better part of a decade. Having described this collection as something of a throwback, I must note that Boillot said by the time he finished picking on October 4 his remaining fruit was already at 13.5% potential alcohol – riper than in 2007 – and only a few 2008 vintage lots in his entire cellar were chaptalized. The vintage reminds him of 1996 in terms of its acidity, but of the long under-rated 1972s overall. “I bottled a lot of magnums in 2008,” Boillot says with a confident twinkle in his eye. Unfortunately, time constraints precluded by tasting the 2007s from this cellar.Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990