Clos des Chenes is the Volnay for people who find Volnay too delicate: the largest of the village's premiers crus, sitting high on the slope where the topsoil thins out over limestone, and reliably the most structured and longest-lived wine the commune makes. 1999 produced a huge crop that growers had to green-harvest hard, but a hot run from mid-August through mid-September ripened it cleanly and the fruit came in healthy with sound acidity — a vintage that has aged far better than anyone predicted at the time. Clay and limestone, indigenous-yeast fermentation in small open vats, a vertical press, 14 to 16 months in barrel with 20 to 25% new oak. At twenty-seven years this is a fully mature bottle, sitting at the far end of the 10-to-25-year window Drouhin gives the wine and comfortably inside its 35-year ceiling. Sourced from a private cellar: stand it up for a day, decant it gently off any sediment, and drink it over the next few years rather than laying it down again.