Volnay 1er Cru "les Fremiets"

When Henri Boillot formally reconstituted the domaine in 2005 — buying out his siblings and renaming it from Domaine Jean Boillot — he handed red wine production to his son Guillaume, a deliberate generational transfer that has since defined the house's Volnay identity. Les Fremiets sits on Volnay's limestone base threaded with schistose layers, a geological combination that tempers the appellation's characteristic softness with a stony, iron-edged grip absent from purely calcareous neighbours. Vines are planted at 10,000 vines per hectare under lutte raisonnée — no insecticides or herbicides — and harvested by hand with timing pushed toward full phenolic maturity. Guillaume ferments in stainless steel with partial whole-bunch inclusion, then ages the wine for 18 months in 228-litre barrique at 50–70% new oak, a regime notably more oak-intensive than most Volnay producers, who typically favour lighter wood to protect the appellation's delicacy. That deliberate richness is the house's rule-break: textural depth over transparency. In 2022, a warm, generous vintage across the Côte de Beaune, the wine carries concentration and structural density while the schist-driven mineral backbone keeps it from tipping into heaviness — a drinking window that rewards patience from 2027 onward.