(from millerandé 80-year-old vines): Dark red-ruby. Highly nuanced, soil-driven nose combines dark raspberry, cherry, milk chocolate, spices and earth. Juicy, savory wine with serious richness and depth of flavor leavened by energy. This impressive and rather powerfully structured wine (it may be close to 14% alcohol, according to Clerget) is less harmonious in the early going than the Clos du Verseuil and its tannins are a bit youthfully clenched. Clerget also made a single barrel of Volnay Les Champans, which he bottled entirely in magnums.

The 2015 Volnay Les Caillerets 1er Cru has a very pure, pastille-like bouquet that does not quite translate its terroir , seeming perhaps a little generic in style, and then deteriorates and becomes rather Port-like. The palate is well balanced and seems to have undergone a longer skin maceration than its peers. Quite open and ripe and velvety smooth, with some blue fruit/cassis toward the finish that feels a little out of place. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting.

Cask sample. Real vigour and upright tannins but lots of subtle ripe fruit too. Real spread of red fruits on the front palate with extremely appetising freshness on the finish. Fine polish and zest. Clean, appetising, just the right side of severe on the finish. (JR)