2005 Nicolas Potel Volnay 1er Cru Champans
Community Tasting Note
drwine2001 wrote:
Thursday, April 15, 2021 - Opened 2 hours earlier. Beautiful deep ruby core without much lightening. Deflating green, resiny aromas. Medium weight, black cherry/blackberry fruit, excellent acidity, but the wine is defined by astringent wood tannins. It appears to have good underlying material, but I always have a strong negative visceral reaction when Volnay is vinified in this manner, which renders it neither delicate nor delicious. If I wanted this much pine, I would have opened a bottle of La Rioja Alta.
To be fair, by the second night, the wood had receded and the sappy dark red fruit had taken a step forward so that the balance between the two was better. It was still a big, bold wine, which for me is weird for Volnay.
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Comment posted by cfk49:
4/17/2021 7:44:00 PM - The Champans terroir (and also the Santenots terroir) is quite different from what most people think of as Volnay (a village that has extraordinary diversity of terroir). I frequently see people criticizing Champans for the winemaking when, in fact, they're describing Champans exactly as it is. Unlike theirs, your description is not picture-perfect Champans, but having tasted this wine from barrel (in this, preceding vintages, and the final two after it that were still under Nic Potel), I don't think it's as much a winemaking issue as you make it out to be, and your second night observations sound a lot more like Champans -- it's a big, fleshy wine.
Comment posted by cfk49:
4/17/2021 7:44:00 PM - The Champans terroir (and also the Santenots terroir) is quite different from what most people think of as Volnay (a village that has extraordinary diversity of terroir). I frequently see people criticizing Champans for the winemaking when, in fact, they're describing Champans exactly as it is. Unlike theirs, your description is not picture-perfect Champans, but having tasted this wine from barrel (in this, preceding vintages, and the final two after it that were still under Nic Potel), I don't think it's as much a winemaking issue as you make it out to be, and your second night observations sound a lot more like Champans -- it's a big, fleshy wine.
Comment posted by drwine2001:
4/17/2021 8:56:00 PM - cfk-Thank you for this informative perspective. The point is well taken, although this much oak in any Volnay does not compute for me.
Comment posted by cfk49:
4/17/2021 10:03:00 PM - I wonder if it's oak. Sometimes stems or reduction can be confused with oak. Sometimes corks give off oak elements, too. I'd have to check my notes (which are nowhere easy to reach), but I don't think Potel used a lot of new oak on the Volnays.