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Domaine Jean-Marc et Thomas Bouley Volnay 1er Cru Les Clos des Chênes Vielles Vignes 2022

Product information

Domaine Jean-Marc et Thomas Bouley Volnay 1er Cru Les Clos des Chênes Vielles Vignes 2022

Pinot Noir from Volnay, France, Côte du Beaune, Burgundy

$692

$672ea in any 3+
$652ea in any 6+
Closure: Cork

Description

The 2022 Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Chênes has turned out beautifully, wafting from the glass with notes of cassis, rose petals and spices, followed by a medium to full-bodied, fleshy and layered palate with a cool core of fruit framed by sweet, powdery tannins that assert themselves on the floral finish. Especially suave and perfumed, it’s reminiscent of a purer, more integrated version of Bouley’s 2019. Drink 2030-2050

William Kelley, The Wine Advocate 95 Points

In stock

Check out all of the wines by Domaine Jean-Marc et Thomas Bouley

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

Average age of the vine  : 60 % is 54 years old. 40 % is 34 years old.

Situation : The top of the slope. South/east.

Soil / Underground : Chalky-clay and rocky on the surface.

Cultivation : Ploughed. No weedkillers or chemical fertilizers used.

Harvest : Manual + Sorting table.

Vinification : Open vats. About 3 weeks.

Ageing : 20 months in oak barrels. 50 % new oak.

About Jean-Marc & Thomas Bouley

From father to son through numerous generations, the Bouley family cultivates vineyards in Volnay. In the last century, from 1919, François Bouley manages the family estate. Christian will succeed him in 1948. Jean-Marc creates his own Domain in 1974, to which his father’s vineyards are added in 1984.

In 2002, Thomas joins the Domain and takes the management in 2012. His main objective is to join the great Domains in Volnay and he’s doing all the right things!

Historically both Volnay and neighbouring village Pommard were considered to produce bold, often tannic reds. A signature of their terroir they said.

Yet today we are seeing a softening of the wines, more plush and pliant tannins. This goes to my point that terroir includes the hand of the maker.

Bouley’s wines fit into this mold.

In the Vineyard

Today the Domaine has near 9Ha across 29 plots in Volnay, Pommard and Beaune.

To produce exceptional wines, it is important to have beautiful grapes. To express the mineral from the soil and the underground, a good microbial life is essential.

In this respect, we use neither weedkillers nor chemical fertilizers. All our vines are ploughed.

The manual work of pruning, de-budding and trellising have evolved to keep only 6 to 8 bunches of grapes per plant and evenly spaced.

In the Winery

The harvest is manual. The grapes are then sorted at the winery on a vibrating table. The fermentation takes between 2 and 3 weeks. Diverse decisions are made to adapt to the vintage and to each appellation.

Ageing is done entirely in oak barrels and will take from 15 to 20 months.

The 2022 Vintage at Jean-Marc & Thomas Bouley

Walk through the vineyards of the Côte de Beaune, and Thomas Bouley’s vines are easy to spot. Their unusually high, evenly spaced canopies are hedged little and late, casting dappled shade over supple, aerated soils that are often covered with a delicate carpet of grass and weeds. At harvest, his yields are moderate, and clusters are invariably open and healthy. Vineyards don’t look like this by accident, and it’s both Bouley’s results and the indefatigable work ethic that lies behind them that have won him the near-universal admiration of other growers along the Côte d’Or.

Yet in many respects, Bouley remains—as I’ve written before in these pages—a vigneron’s vigneron: someone more talked about by his neighbors than by collectors overseas, who are more readily seduced by social media savoir faire than hard work in the vineyards. Nor does he suffer fools gladly, something that can be an impediment to wooing the wine press.

Thomas credits his father, Jean-Marc, with constituting the domaine and beginning domaine bottling. “I’m a worker but not a builder; I love being in the vines, but I couldn’t have pieced this domaine together, or financed and constructed this winery,” he explains. “So, without my father, none of what I do would be possible.” Thomas began working the vines and making the wines in the early 2000s, a decade before his father’s official retirement in 2012.

The progression has been step by step. In 2002, for example, Bouley raised the height of his trellising for the first time; in 2003, he experimented with whole clusters; in 2006, he began using a gentler must pump to avoid crushing his grapes at cuvaison; after 2008, he maintained his new barrels more carefully to avoid any issues with volatile acidity or other unwelcome developments. More recently, he has refined his cooperage choices, working with barrels produced by his friend Bruno Lorenzon. While he was already starting from a formidable basis, the fruits of accumulated experience are writ large in the resulting wines, which seem to gain in precision and accomplishment with each passing year.

William Kelley, The Wine Advocate

Kelley wrote a great article on Bouley the meticulous, perfectionist vigneron.

Where in the World is Jean-Marc & Thomas Bouley?

Jean-Marc & Thomas Bouley are based in the village of Volnay in the Côte du. Beaune with their prize holdings in Volnay and Pommard including a series of Premier Crus.

95 Points

The 2022 Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Chênes has turned out beautifully, wafting from the glass with notes of cassis, rose petals and spices, followed by a medium to full-bodied, fleshy and layered palate with a cool core of fruit framed by sweet, powdery tannins that assert themselves on the floral finish. Especially suave and perfumed, it's reminiscent of a purer, more integrated version of Bouley's 2019. Drink 2030-2050

William Kelley, The Wine Advocate

Where in the world does the magic happen?

Domaine Jean-Marc et Thomas BOULEY, Chemin de la Cave, Volnay, France

Volnay
Côte du Beaune
Burgundy
France

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