A 2008 Volnay Santenots consists almost entirely (and, following the replanting of Prieur’s other Santenots acreage to Chardonnay, will in 2009 consist exclusively) of fruit from dozen year old vines in their monopole Clos de Santenots. Mace, cocoa powder, blond tobacco, nutmeg, and cinnamon inform the nose and a palate that features well-integrated tannin and sweetly-rich cherry fruit. It appears that the Prieur team approached fermentative extraction very gently lest the resultant wine reflect the hail and that this approach paid other dividends as well There is a chalky mineral dimension in the finish as well as impressive persistence and primary juiciness of fruit and satisfying richness, even if it is less dynamic or bright than most of the best 2008s. And while char, vanilla, and spice all point to the nearness of new oak, it never becomes obtrusive. Consume this over the next 4-6 years and feel free to relish its youthful generosity. Martin Prieur, oenologist Nadine Gublin, and their team hung tight in the 2008 vintage and ended up harvesting very ripe-tasting Pinots, at the price of yields dramatically reduced by the necessary selection (to the extent hail and green harvest had not already cut them back). As a group, these 2008s tended toward a not entirely felicitous alliance of tannic abrasion and toasty, smoky, ultimately slightly palate-drying new wood, although many of the wines showed more harmoniously when I re-tasted them in April than they had the month prior, and I have accordingly favored my later impressions in the notes that follow. It may well be true by some measure – as Gublin opined – that the 2008s here are more consistently ripe than were the 2006s, but for now I find more depth, harmony, and charm in the latter. Their 2007s – which the domaine began picking already on August 30 – are not currently displaying much of the charm they showed very early on, and while the estate’s staff hope is that this will be regained (and certainly the wines have “structure” in the sense of tannin), I continue to be skeptical in general about deferring those pleasures that this vintage offers. In many vineyards, incidentally, 2008 represented the third consecutive vintage in which Prieur had harvested scarcely more than 20 hectoliters per hectare. Importer: Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700