It offers a ripe, forward blackberry and blueberry fruit character with earth, smoke and spice notes. The texture is substantial, with firm tannins and abundant extract, but there is nothing heavy or astringent here. Although Pierre Lafon has begun to experiment with whole clusters in the ferment, there was none in any wine this vintage. This wine was racked after harvest 2024 and will be bottled in the spring.

Lafon's Santenots is a reference for the appellation in each vintage; 2023 is no exception. It offers a ripe, forward blackberry and blueberry fruit character with earth, smoke and spice notes. The texture is substantial, with firm tannins and abundant extract, but there is nothing heavy or astringent here. Although Pierre Lafon has begun to experiment with whole clusters in the ferment, there was none in any wine this vintage. This wine was racked after harvest 2024 and will be bottled in the spring.

(93-95 points) 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.

(93-95 points) 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. - By Neal Martin, November 2024

(92-94 points) Not racked. A fine ruby to purple colour, not too intense, but the bouquet is. A little blood orange alongside strawberry and more. At the start of ripeness yet needed picking, there is a lactic oak from the barrel, but I like the way the fruit keeps returning in waves. More energy and fresher fruit in a second barrel, and certainly very persistent.

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

(91-93 points) The 2023 Volnay 1er Cru Les Santenots-du-Milieu is the most textural and concentrated of Lafon's reds this year, wafting from the glass with notes of dark berries, vine smoke and spices, framed by a deft touch of new oak. Medium to full-bodied, layered and satiny, with a fleshy core of fruit framed by sweet tannins, it will offer a broad drinking window.- WK