2014 Volnay Santenots

(100% destemmed): Full red-ruby color. Superripe aromas of roasted black cherry and dark chocolate. Concentrated, juicy and powerful, with dark cherry and iron flavors dominating; sweet and deep but a bit youthfully monolithic. A very rich Santenots with ripe tannins and finishing notes of game and spices. Rossignol now vinifies his three parcels in Santenots separately before combining them, as he believes it would be a mistake to vinify thin- and thick-skinned grapes together: they're from three different altitudes and soils and they each need their own extraction, he explained. But it would also be too complicated to age the three components separately because they would also have different élevage needs.

The 2014 Volnay 1er Cru les Santenots comes from two hectares of vineyard, half that used to be rented by Nicolas Rossignols's father and has since been purchased by the domain. It is fermented as three different cuvées, from vines at the top and bottom of the slope, plus one on sandier soils next to Meursault. It is fully destemmed. It really opens after five minutes in the glass, a mixture of red and black fruit with just a faint tinge of seaweed. The palate is medium-bodied with a slightly grainy texture. There is a nice bead of acidity here, great energy and tension, quite linear toward the finish that is bestowed with elegance and poise, as well as a pinch of allspice on the finish. This is very classy.