Monday, December 14, 2015

Domaine Michel Lafarge (Volnay) -- 2014s Tasted from Cask; and Domaine Lafarge-Vial (Fleurie) -- 2014s Tasted from Bottle

The “good” news here is that production somewhat higher in 2014 than in either of the two preceding vintages: 2012 was 20% of a full crop, 2013 was 35% of a full crop, and 2014 was 45% of a full crop. Once again in 2014, the vineyards here were in the center of the June 28 hail area.


Harvesting began on 17 September. Frédéric Lafarge said there was not much sorting to be done, either for botrytis or Asian fruit fly-infected grapes. He characterized chaptalization was “very little.”

This is one of the great estates of Burgundy and the wines are up to the usual high standard, especially considering the ferocious obstacles the vintage posed.

One new development is that in 2014, Frédéric Lafarge and his wife Chantal (née Vial) purchased an estate in Fleurie in the Beaujolais, which they call Domaine Lafarge-Vial. I tasted the wines from cask in mid-November 2014, but as I am not accustomed to tasting Beaujolais from cask at that time (and because the wines did not particularly stand out), I wrote no notes on the wines. We started this visit tasting the wines from bottle (bottling took place only a few weeks prior), and I am happy to say that they showed much better than from cask the previous year. As in Volnay, these vines are farmed biodynamically, although I do not believe that the previous owners were biodynamic, so it would currently be in a period of transition. (Continue reading here.)