Top Pommard and Volnay 2022 wines en primeur
Growers in Pommard and Volnay were delighted with their wines in 2022, Charles Curtis MW finds out why.
Best producers:
- Domaine de Courcel (Pommard)
- Domaine de la Commarine (Pommard)
- Domaine Joannès Violot-Guillemard (Pommard)
- Domaine A.F. Gros (Pommard)
- Domaine Michel Lafarge (Volnay)
- Domaine Marquis d’Angerville (Volnay)
- Domaine Pierrick Bouley (Volnay)
- Domaine François Buffet (Volnay)
Scroll down for tasting notes and scores for Charles’ top-scoring Pommard and Volnay 2022 wines
South of Beaune, vignerons were delighted with what Frédéric Lafarge described as a ‘perfect’ vintage. Flowering was even, early, and thorough, and there was more balance to the rainfall, with several smaller showers rather than a deluge in June and then a drought. This rain allowed the vines to work straight through and ripen the large crop.
The wines from Volnay seemed even more supple and lush than is usually the case, while those from Pommard are riper, and the tannins are not as formidable as they can be in a lesser year. Guillaume d’Angerville placed the vintage between 2018 and 2020 in terms of quality and style, saying: ‘It is perhaps more exuberant than 2018 but less elegant than 2020’.
The team from d’Angerville began to pick on 23 August, a few days before Lafarge (26 August). Other vignerons such as régisseur Yves Confuron at Domaine de Courcel waited much longer. Confuron noted: ‘We started to pick on 10 September – if you’re going to extract, you need some tannin.’
Other growers in Pommard went in the opposite direction. Joannès Violot-Guillemard said: ‘This year, we did our best not to extract [too much]; we punched down only once, six days into the fermentation, by foot; the rest of the time, only pumping over, and no rack-and-return.’
Caroline Parent of Domaine A.F. Gros described a similar regime, adding that her brother Mathias kept the fermentation to just 10 days to prevent over-extraction. The teams at A.F. Gros picked slowly, starting on 1 September and continuing until 17 September to ensure phenolic ripeness.
Score table listing Charles’ top Burgundy 2022 wines all scoring 94 points or above
All 700+ Burgundy 2022 tasting notes and scores
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See further analysis and top-scoring wines of the following areas:
Morey-St-Denis | Chambolle-Musigny | Chassagne & Puligny-Montrachet | Vosne-Romanée & Nuits-St-Georges | Pommard & Volnay | Gevrey-Chambertin | Meursault |
Top-scoring Pommard and Volnay 2022 wines:
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