The 2023 Volnay Les Santenots-du-Milieu has another very delineated, quite floral bouquet that is cut from a similar cloth to the Champans, with just a touch of violet emerging with time in the glass. More powerful than the other Volnays, the palate is well balanced, with great depth and white pepper/graphite notes toward the very persistent finish. This is a Volnay Santenots with well-placed ambition, much more elegant than vintages 10 or 20 years ago.(NM)

The 2023 Santenots du Milieu was also singing at the time of my visit and is a stunning wine in the making. The bouquet is deep, complex and typically black fruity, offering up scents of black cherries, sweet dark berries, roasted gamebird, coffee bean, a fine base of dark soil tones, woodsmoke and a deft framing of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and beautifully sappy at the core, with excellent soil signature, ripe tannins, sound acids and excellent length and grip on the complex and impeccably balanced finish. Great juice. (Drink between 2038-2085)

This is just plain bold—unusually so in my experience, even for a Santenots. It is muscled up with über-ripe fruit and has significant, spicy oak influence. Still, that plethora of ripe red fruits has the oomph to soak it all up. Don't short-change the wine by opening it too early on.