2005 Volnay Santenots

From the “du Dessus” portion of the site, Prieur’s 2005 Volnay Santenots offers a nose and mouth full of vivid black raspberry and Maine blueberries wreathed in herbs and flowers and dusted with salt and chalk. Bright, clear, and tender for all of its liqueur-like sweetness, this displays admirably pure and infectiously juicy finishing fruit and will give lots of short-term pleasure, although about its developmental potential I hesitate to speculate. Nearly all bottlings from this negociant – on an upward path since the influx of Rodet capital in the early ‘90s – in fact originate in the Domaine Jacques Prieur. Martin Prieur and his team have striven to capture purity of fruit through gentle extraction, although for my taste I found some of their 2005s overly confectionary due to the influence of toasty new wood on already very sweetly ripe raw material. After malo – which was generally quite late here this year – the wines were sulfured but not yet racked. Importer: Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700.

A much more reserved nose that despite its reticence is elegant, pure and clearly very ripe leading to rich, full and somber flavors supported by dusty and mouth coating tannins. This is a backward effort that will need time to blossom yet the underlying material is undeniably in place for this to slowly mature into something special.

Good bright, medium ruby. Primary aromas of black raspberry, mint, flowers and oak. Juicy black raspberry flavor shows an almost liqueur-like sweetness, but the wine retains a sappy quality thanks to its vibrant acidity. Finishes with broad, supple tannins. Very young.