Medium red. Exhilarating high-pitched aromas of redcurrant, crushed cherry, blood orange, spices and mint. Densely packed and sweet, showing a compelling juiciness to its red fruit flavors that reminded me more of 2013--and fresher in bottle than it appeared to be from barrel last year. Finishes with silky, suave tannins and terrific slowly mounting length. This should evolve very slowly.

The 2012 Pommard Les Fremiets is juicy, round and immediate. Sweet red berries, rose petals and bright spices inform, a supple, engaging Pommard with tons of near-term appeal. This is one of the more open wines in the range today, although I suspect it will also develop nicely in bottle. There is plenty of vintage 2012 power, but here the contours are soft and inviting.

The 2012 Pommard 1er Cru Les Fremiers comes from a single parcel of 70-year old vines. It has an engaging bouquet with pretty red and black fruits, hints of cassis with dried violets emerging with time (quite Cote de Nuits in style.) The palate is clean and crisp on the entry, quite linear in the mouth, whilst the finish is a little “conservative” and does not really engage like the aromatics. Fine, but it is rather overshadowed by the Volnays. Having tasted with his wife Ghislaine Barthod in the morning, I returned to the same address in the afternoon to see Louis Boillot. The domaine was established in 2002 when his father split the family domaine, Louis Boillot & Fils, between Louis and his brother Pierre. Henri Boillot is their cousin. It is an interesting set up: half the cellar reserved for Ghislaine’s wines and the other for her husband’s and whilst I have a great deal of experience with the former, I was less acquainted with Boillot’s. However I am glad that I did the time to sample through an impressive portfolio that were generally balanced, refined and skilfully expressed their terroir. In common with so many other producers, the affects of poor flowering, coulure and millerandage reduced yields. His Volnay Caillerets was reduced down to just half a barrel and in the case of his Pommard Village, down to a negligible three crates of grapes that were blended into the Bourgogne Rouge. Louis also rued the fact that the decreased total number of barrels meant that the ratio of new oak is a little higher than he might have liked, and therefore after vinifying in new oak he often transferred his wines into used oak after malo-lactic fermentations. Generally, this strategy worked and most of his 2012 did not exhibit excessive levels of wood. I would zone in on Louis’s exquisite Volnay wines that seemed to put the traumas of the growing season behind them, whilst the Nuits Saint Georges is exemplary. Importer: Sussex Wine and Rare Wine Company (CA) and several importers in the UK including Lay & Wheeler, Raeburn Fine Wine, Averys and Berry Brothers.