Comte Armand Volnay 2022

from Les Grands Champs and Les Famines

Producer note: Régisseur Paul Zinetti commented that the 2022 growing season "was much less challenging than its 2021 counterpart as it was largely hot, dry and without any significant climatic incidents. With that said, there was just enough rain at the right moments to avoid much hydric stress, especially just before the harvest that really helped. We picked from the 24th of August in Volnay and the 27th for the Clos and brought in ripe, clean and reasonably abundant fruit. Yields were good at 36 hl/ha in the Clos and around 40 hl/ha for our other appellations. Potential alcohols were varied at between 13.3 and 14.3% and the Clos came in at 13.7%. The vinifications, where I chose to use no whole clusters [Zinetti used 10% whole clusters in 2020.], were easy and had no problems finishing. As to the style of 2022, it's obviously riper with less acidity than 2021 but with better overall maturities and, at least to this point, better balance as well." 

Tasting note: Here the expressive nose features a broader range of spice elements to the ripe and fresh aromas of cassis, black raspberry and violet scents. The notably finer but not denser medium-bodied flavors possess a lovely texture thanks to the relatively fine-grained tannins shaping the youthfully austere finale. This velvet-textured effort should also be capable of repaying mid-term keeping. Allen Meadows, Burghound