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2017 Volnay, Les Taillepieds, 1er Cru, Domaine de Montille, Burgundy

  • Red
  • Dry
  • Medium Bodied
  • Pinot Noir
William Kelley
92-94/100
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Product: 20178016786
2017 Volnay, Les Taillepieds, 1er Cru, Domaine de Montille, Burgundy

Description

So good is the 80-year-old plant material in this exceptional vineyard that 100 percent whole-bunch is used regardless of the vintage. The floral perfume is sublime, while the palate has a confident feel with sweet red-berry fruit layered over gravelly tannins and culminating in a slatey, saline finish. Drink 2023-2033.

Winemaker Brian Sieve draws comparisons between the white wines of 2017 and 2014, explaining that the texture, weight and freshness are very similar in both years, although 2017 has perhaps a little more fruit ripeness, along with excellent tension and persistence. He believes that this same freshness and brightness in the reds will provide ageing capacity, pointing out that they worked hard to restrict the yield of Pinot Noir to achieve riper grapes. Overall slightly less whole-bunch fermentation was used as Brian felt the stems and fruit were not as ripe as in richer vintages.

Colour Red
Sweetness Dry
Vintage 2017
Alcohol % 13
Grape List Pinot Noir
Body Medium Bodied
Property Domaine de Montille

Critics reviews

William Kelley 92-94/100
The 2017 Volnay 1er Cru Les Taillepieds reveals a delicate but promising bouquet of wild berries, peonies, rich soil and raw cocoa. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, deep and layered, with good concentration at the core, broad shoulders and fine but firm structuring tannins, concluding with a lingering finish.William Kelley - 31/01/2019
William Kelley, RobertParker.com (Jan 2019)

About this wine

Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir is probably the most frustrating, and at times infuriating, wine grape in the world. However when it is successful, it can produce some of the most sublime wines known to man. This thin-skinned grape which grows in small, tight bunches performs well on well-drained, deepish limestone based subsoils as are found on Burgundy's Côte d'Or. Pinot Noir is more susceptible than other varieties to over cropping - concentration and varietal character disappear rapidly if yields are excessive and yields as little as 25hl/ha are the norm for some climats of the Côte d`Or.

Domaine de Montille

The De Montille family has long been a venerable one in Burgundy, though Domaine de Montille’s reputation was properly established in 1947: prominent Dijon lawyer Hubert de Montille inherited 2.5 hectares in Volnay, later adding further parcels in Volnay, Pommard and Puligny. Hubert’s style was famously austere: low alcohol, high tannin and sublime in maturity. His son, Etienne, joined him from ’83 to ’89 before becoming the senior winemaker, taking sole charge from ’95. Etienne also managed Château de Puligny-Montrachet from ’01; he bought it, with investors, in ’12. The two estates were separate until ’17, when the government decreed that any wine estate bearing an appellation name could no longer offer wine from outside that appellation. The solution was to absorb the château estate into De Montille – the amalgamated portfolio is now one of the finest in the Côte d’Or. Etienne converted the estate to organics in ‘95, and to biodynamics in 2005, making the house style more generous and open, focusing on the use of whole bunches for the reds.

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