We study structural properties of truncated Weyl modules. A truncated Weyl module WN (λ) is a local Weyl module for g [t], where g is a finite-dimensional simple Lie algebra. It has been conjectured that, if N is sufficiently small with respect to λ, the truncated Weyl module is isomorphic to a fusion product of certain irreducible modules. Our main result proves this conjecture when λ is a multiple of certain fundamental weights, including all minuscule ones for simply laced g. We also take a further step towards proving the conjecture for all multiples of fundamental weights by proving that the corresponding truncated Weyl module is isomorphic to a natural quotient of a fusion product of Kirillov-Reshetikhin modules. One important part of the proof of the main result shows that any truncated Weyl module is isomorphic to a Chari-Venkatesh module and explicitly describes the corresponding family of partitions. This leads to further results in the case that g = sl2 related to Demazure flags and chains of inclusions of truncated Weyl modules.Part of this work was developed while the second author was a visiting Ph.D. student at the University of Cologne. He thanks Peter Littelmann and Deniz Kus for their guidance and support during that period and the University of Cologne for hospitality. He also thanks CAPES and CNPq (SWE 203324/2014-5) for the financial support.A. M. was partially supported by CNPq grant 304477/2014-1 and Fapesp grant 2014/09310-5.