A bottle of the 1976 Robert Ampeau Volnay Santenots turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. Ampeau’s wines develop at a glacial pace, and this beauty was no exception. Youthful red in color, it offered bright red cherry and floral aromas with more spicy (however closed), brooding flavors on the palate. The red cherry and dark berry fruit were shrouded beneath a very firm but polished cloak of tannins. As the wine was still closed and unyielding, with noteworthy but balanced acidity providing freshness and lift, it seems to be frozen in time, floating in some sort of vinous (no pun intended) suspended animation. The terroir of Santenots (characterized by a thin, red, iron-rich, heavy clay soil lying just above subsoil of hard limestone) tends to result in bigger wines than is typical for Volnay, so it’s more than likely Ampeau’s winemaking style and the nature of the 1976 vintage (a hot, dry summer led to powerful, tannic wines) that account for this wine’s personality. Impressively, this remarkably youthful wine exhibited no roasted or cooked aromas and flavors, and matched extremely well with the lamb broth, the stew and the heart preparations.
Volnay-Santenots is among the appellation's southernmost sites (closest to Meursault). It's situated on the mid-slope section of the hillside. Michel Ampeau's grandfather acquired the first vines in the early-1900s before his father, Robert, acquired more in the 1950s.
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