The medium-to-dark ruby-colored Santenay La Maladiere reveals sweet blackberry scents and a beautifully ripe, medium-bodied, bright, and deep core of metallic, stone, mineral, and luscious cherry flavors. Its long, soft finish ends on traces of oak spice and black raspberries. Projected maturity: now-2001. The score, on a range and in parentheses, indicates that the wine was tasted from barrel. Vincent Girardin's 1996s are generally fresher and more supple than his 1995s, but are not as concentrated or structured. Since he personally prefers softer styled wines, Girardin prefers the 1996 vintage. My feeling is that many of his 1995s will develop better over time than these delicious mid-term drinking wine. Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel (205) 980-8802

The ruby-colored Santenay La Maladiere reveals crisp and defined cherry and violet aromas. It is a highly-structured, well-delineated, masculine, medium-to-full-bodied wine with a silky core filled with complex and concentrated flavors of blackberries, minerals, roasted herbs, earth and iron. It will be at its best between 1998-2002. I was absolutely blown away by the quality of Vincent Girardin's red Cote de Beaunes at my April tasting in Washington. Whereas there is always an element of doubt concerning the end product when tasting out of barrel, what I saw from Girardin was already bottled and in retail stores throughout the US (all of them were tasted with the American importer and many were later re-tasted blind with other 95 Burgundies). These are superlative red burgundies with a superb rapport in quality and price. This estate's wines exhibit superb ripeness, outstanding balance, beautiful purity of fruit, extraordinarily well-integrated oak and tannin. In the top cuvees there is unsurpassed length. I know of no other producer/negociant in Burgundy that can deliver as broad a range of outstanding wines at such reasonable prices. Furthermore, Girardin, like Bernard Dugat in Gevrey-Chambertin, has worked hard to improve the quality of his wines. To top it all off, we can look forward to many more years of sublime wines from this estate/negociant as Girardin and his wife, Veronique, are quite young. If you love Burgundian reds, run, don't walk, to your wine merchant and purchase these dazzling wines. Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel (205) 980-8802.

It is exceedingly difficult to find high quality, complex Pinot Noir, especially from Burgundy, in the $25-$40 range. Given the 1994 vintage, the odds are stacked against consumers. Many wines that possessed plenty of elegant, supple fruit and charm from barrel, were given a knock-out punch by the predilection of so many growers (and don't forget to blame the oenologists and mobile bottlers) to passively allow their wines to be nuked with high levels of sulphur, as well as excessive fining and filtration, including a sterile one if requested. Girardin's first vintage to go into the bottle unfined and unfiltered has resulted in wines of undeniable finesse, sweet fruit, charm, complexity, and elegance. Although the 1994 Santenay Maladiere is more tannic and leaner than the Clos de la Confrerie, it is a solid, muscular style of red Burgundy without the latter's finesse and elegance. Burgundy is frightfully expensive, and often disappointing, not only on a qualitative level, but in terms of the price/quality relationship. How rare it is to taste a group of Burgundies and find them to be delicious, satisfying, and, for Burgundy, reasonably priced. Vincent Girardin appears to be making the finest wines of his career, turning out full blown, smoky, oaky whites, and gorgeously seductive, round, generous red wines that are modestly priced, especially when one considers the prices now fetched by the top single vineyard/reserve Pinot Noirs from California and Oregon. I was very impressed with not only Girardin's 1994 whites, but also his 1994 reds, the first vintage he has bottled without any fining or filtration - an important factor as the style of the 1994 vintage (elegance and lightness) strongly suggests such wines cannot endure much SO2, or aroma and flavor eviscerating fining and filtration. Vineyard Brands, Inc., Chester, VT; tel. (802) 875-2139; fax (802) 875-3566

The Santenay Clos de la Confrerie and Santenay La Maladiere are both very good examples of Santenay, with sweet, ripe, strawberry/black-cherry fruit, and excellent, deep ruby colors. There is some toasty new oak, but the wines' personalities are dominated by their rich, ripe berry fruit and velvety textures. These are delicious 1993 red Burgundies for drinking over the next decade.Vincent Girardin, another member of a family with multiple cellars and labels, has clearly succeeded in taming the beastly tannin of the 1993 vintage. All of his wines exhibit excellent sweet, ripe fruit, supple, velvety-textured personalities, fine concentration, good vibrancy, and enough acidity and tannin to provide delineation and structure. Amazingly, Girardin was able to achieve far more ripeness and lower acidity than many of his peers.Importer: Vineyard Brands, Chester, VT; tel. (802) 875-2139