Domaine Georges Glantenay Volnay 1er Cru Les Santenots 2019  £74.61

DOMAINE GLANTENAY VOLNAY 1ER CRU LES SANTENOTS

Guillaume Glantenay is the sixth generation of his family to run this Domaine, which he took over from his father in 2013. His father still works the estate’s eight hectares of vineyard, four of which are in Volnay, while Guillaume runs the new cuverie. For those who remember the wines from his father’s time, Guillaume has brought a greater elegance to the wines, and lovely purity of fruit. He uses about 15-20% whole bunch to lift the perfumes and low toast oak to support rather than mask these aromas.

The vineyard is located in the commune of Meursault, on the boundary of the Volnay and Meursault appellations. Soils here are a mixture of clay and limestone with chalky marl subsoils. The vines are Guyot trained and are an average age of 60 years old. The crops are tended to by hand and are consistently monitored during the year in order to keep the number of treatments required to a minimum.

The 2019 growing season was variable. It began with a mild and moderately wet winter, followed by an episode of severe frost on the 5th April that reduced yields. The warmer weather and drought-like conditions arrived in summer. Harvest began on the 9th September, when the grapes reached optimum ripeness. Despite the hot summer, the wines are beautifully fresh, fruity, balanced and lively.

The fruit was hand-picked and thoroughly sorted, first in the vineyard and again in the winery. The grapes were cold-soaked in stainless-steel vats before indigenous yeasts start fermentation. The maceration and fermentation lasted a total of one month with daily punch-downs and pump-overs. The wine is then aged on fine lees in French oak barrels, 30% of which is new, for 15 months. It is bottled without fining or filtering.

Fresh and elegant, this premier cru has aromas of gooseberry, cherry and violets that evolve with time to give notes of cooked fruits, game and spice. It has velvety tannins that lead onto the long finish. `Les Santenots` acquires superb complexity with bottle age.