i've owned a lot of boots, but so far the only ones i've really fell in love with are my redwing 8165's.
I bought them on a whim one day after seeing them on grailed for a cheap price. I've always liked this kind of black boot with a chunky white sole, and I figured I couldn't afford Virgils or anything so I'd settle for these. In reality I wasn't settling at all, these boots are fucking great and I think that for my style personally I actually prefer them over the alternatives (visvim, sophnet, vibergs and whoever else makes this type of shoe)
As I mentioned elsewhere, the leather on them is kind of atypical. If I had to describe it, it's inbetween a full-grain and a corrected grain. According to redwing CS they dip this type of "Chrome" (not chromexcel) leather in a vat of dye for like 24 hours. It's not going to age delicately like most leather boots, this leather is going to end up scuffed and raw like the ones in this picture:
which I personally think is awesome.
Other than that, I seem to be on a never ending quest for the perfect slim black boot. I really like the Common Projects Officer boots that I own (The leather is easily the best I've ever handled), but the sizing is weird- I sized down to a 40, which is supposed to be a 7, but they're still at least a whole size too big for me. My brannock is 8. I've always been a big fan of Buttero's offerings, but can't seem to find their black lace-ups anywhere except Rakuten any more, and I don't really want to take a risk on fucking up the sizing on $500 boots and being unable to return them...
...speaking of which, I also own a pair of Dayton Service Boots but I wouldn't recommend them (At least not if you're going to pay MSRP, and are buying from Dayton themselves), based on my personal experience with the company. Bad customer service, 9 month wait, boots are not a great fit for my feet despite being a custom-order with foot-tracings and everything. Pretty sure they sized based on my left foot which is smaller, while ignoring my right foot, because my right foot hurts a lot whenever I wear them. The company refused to do an exchange/refund/rebuild despite this (Unless I paid $100 for the boots to be resoled so they could resell. Even though I had worn them for less than 6 hours total when I requested a refund). The leather on them is great and they're not going to fall apart any time though, so I guess there's that.