The village of Volnay is located in the Côte de Beaune, South of the town of Beaune and neighbouring the village of Pommard, between two hills and protected from the winds, the vineyard of Volnay bear an ancient name.
The name of this village stems surely from the Celtic word Vol. It translates a sense of roundness due to the geographical position of this village whose name can be traced back to the 12th century (Volnay).
This appellation is part of the rare ones that only produces red wines.
The average production of the village is around 8,400 hectolitres produced from 213 hectares.
Volnay are feminine wines “par excellence” : racy, they combine nobility, finesse and elegance.
Colour: Vivid and bright red.
Nose: With age, the aromas take on notes of ripe or candied fruit, mushroom and mild spices.
Palate: A pleasant sensation of roundness and velvety texture. Long aftertaste, it presents tannins. Full mouth with good length of black cherries and roasted cacao beans
The 2013 vintage will likely be remembered as one of the most difficult vintages of this new millennium.
An extremely cold and wet spring season delayed the flowering and, most importantly, extended the flowering process to more than two weeks throughout France. This long period of time brought about varied levels of maturation in the grapes, forcing winegrowers to adapt their work in the vines.
Thankfully, great weather conditions returned by the end of June. The summer was quite warm and dry, which was reassuring and beneficial to the quality and maturation of the grapes; because even if these weather conditions did not allow for the vines to catch up with the delayed flowering, they brought significant taste and density to the fruit.
One very dark date to remember however is July 23, when the most violent hailstorm of these past 30 years pounded on the Côte de Beaune, destroying a large part of the harvest in Pommard, Beaune, Savigny, and Pernand-Vergelesses.
After a fresh and rainy month of September, the vineyards had to face an exceptionally late harvest. The grapes, weakened by the various weather-related events, had to be meticulously sorted. The yields were low, with a volume equal to, and in some cases much lower than that of 2012.
Everything depended on the pace of the harvest, which had to consider the compromise between the good sanitary condition of the grapes and their maturity. Nature left us with a window of opportunity lasting a few days; the best knew how to benefit from this opportunity and vinified some very nice cuvées. By profiting from the low yields they created wonderful wines, especially in the Côte de Nuits. For the whites, the Chardonnay reacted very well and offers quite fragrant cuvées with nice fresh notes of citrus.
The 2013 vintage will thus remain an example of the winemakers' savoir-faire and their fight to face the whims of Mother Nature.