There’s not a lot more that I can add to this offer than what you see above in the name: Old Vines of Pinot Noir, grown in one of the most esteemed Burgundian villages–Volnay, with nine plus years of age and ready-to-rock, and all for just sixty bucks. Boom! Feel free to click and start loading up your cart now. All I can say is that after many mentions (aka complaints) of the rising costs for top tier Burgundy, we can finally say the opposite: How is this price so low?!? The Maison Vincent Girardin and their winemaker Eric Germain are highly respected, and with the possible exception of Chambolle-Musigny, there is no better terroir for elegant, floral, Pinot-to-the max wine heaven than Volnay. That’s the rub, grab what you can before it is gone.
In 1980 Vincent Girardin decided that he did want to toil in odd jobs at various familial connections, so instead he founded his own tiny estate by cobbling together five hectares of vines in the Côte de Beaune. He was able to slowly add to that, but the real breakthrough came when he began purchasing fruit from top tier vineyards whose owners were, for many reasons, losing interest or capacity to make their own wine. Large merchants had been purchasing finished wines to bottle and label themselves before taking to market for generations; in fact that arrangement was the dominant one in Burgundy for several centuries. But to purchase fruit using long-term vineyard leases was a niche activity that only a few large estates did, and no one was doing it at the artisanal level of Vincent Girardin.
Though always a meticulous farmer and steward of the vines, Vincent experimented with different philosophies in the cellar for a couple decades before hiring Eric Germain in the early 2000s.
Eric insisted that the focus be on clean, low-intervention wines whose primary function was to showcase pure terroir transparency. That has now been the philosophy of Maison Vincent Girardin for two plus decades. In 2012 Vincent sold his estate and his label to the Compagnie de Vins d’Autrefois, a long time partner, but the Compagnie kept the exact same nine person team in place, including Eric of course, where they remain today.
The villages Volnay comes from several old vines parcels, mainly the lieu-dits of “Les Lurets,” and “Les Gigottes.” The vines average 65-70 years now, and the small, tight clusters are packed with complexity and aromatic pizzazz. The fruit is partially de-stemmed and then fermented in steel tanks while undergoing very gentle pigeage before being racked into French oak barrels, about 15% of which are new, for about 14 months before being bottled according to lunar cycles, and without fining or filtration.
Serve this classic Burgundy Pinot Noir in large bowl stems, at around 60 degrees after a good 60 minute decant. The 2016 vintage was a challenging one, with very low yields, but the fruit was powerfully structured and had excellent density, so although this beauty is already over nine years old it is still very youthful. But with air it opens beautifully with a nose bursting with cherries, all the cherries–Bing, Morello, Sour, cherry liqueur–and savory notes of dried rose petals, cocoa powder, mint, red licorice, baking spice, and earthy mushrooms. And as good as it is now, I am sure it will improve over the next five to ten years, so grab as much as you can fit in your cellar because this price is not likely to be seen again!
