Jerome Fornerot Santenay Les Charmes 2023

Importers thoughts - Sourced from three separate plots on the southwest side of Santenay village, planted across four decades between 1960 and 2000, giving the wine a blend of vine ages within a single site. The soil is deep clayey marl, richer and more water-retentive than the thin limestone of the Saint-Aubin crus, which typically gives Santenay reds their more substantial, structured character. Vines are pruned in simple Guyot or Cordon de Royat depending on age and vigour, and the whole site is sustainably farmed.

Hand-picked, sorted and fully destemmed, then vatted for around 15 to 20 days of maceration and fermentation to draw out the structure this deeper soil produces. Pressing is slow and gentle via pneumatic press. The wine is settled and gravity-fed into French oak for 12 months, with 15 to 20% new oak, the higher end of the domaine's range, then spends a further 6 months in vat before bottling at the estate.

Ripe black fruit sits at the core, red cherry and raspberry lifted by a note of rose petal and a savoury edge of forest floor, all wrapped around genuinely well-structured, mineral-inflected tannins. The clay-marl soil gives it a firmer, more substantial backbone than the domaine's Saint-Aubin reds, a wine with real body rather than pure fruit lift, while acidity keeps it fresh rather than heavy. Drinkable young for those who like that grip, but genuinely better after 2 to 3 years in the cellar, once the tannins soften into the fruit.