The 2020 Volnay 1er Cru Les Santenots offers up aromas of sweet cherries, plums, raw cocoa and spices, followed by a medium to full-bodied, supple and seamless palate that's suave, elegant and enveloping.

I have been unmoved by recent efforts from Yvon Clerget. The 1991s were hard and thin, the 1992s dilute, and the 1993s exhibit frightening levels of the vintage's hardness, astringent tannin, and physiologically immature fruit characteristics. They are all cleanly made, with moderate quantities of tart red fruits, medium body, and ferociously hard tannin in the finish. I do not understand why wines such as these have elicited so much enthusiasm elsewhere, as they are stubborn, backward, and unlikely to ever open. (This wine was not individually reviewed.) Importer: Louis/Dressner Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 319-8768

The three finest wines I tasted from Clerget include a stylish, elegant, spicy, but woody and tannic 1990 Volnay-Santenots. It exhibits adequate ripeness, medium weight, and plenty of structure and grip. It will benefit from 5-6 years of cellaring and has the potential to last for more than a decade. In all fairness to Clerget, the 1990s had just been bottled when I tasted them. But even allowing for that, I felt his 1990s were relatively compact, medium-weight wines, with adequate color, but they were often too woody and tannic, especially in view of their moderate levels of extraction. While the recent bottling no doubt suppressed some charm, the lack of richness as well as the relative degree of tannic harshness gives me cause for concern. Importer: Louis/Dressner, New York, NY