Domaine Michel Lafarge - Beaune 1er Cru 'Clos des Aigrots' 2023

The Lafarge family has been making wine in Volnay since before the French Revolution, and what Michel and Frédéric do today is informed by the collective wisdom passed down through many generations of Lafarge.

Everything father and son do, therefore, is based on experience and a deep respect for tradition, rather than in following trends. As Michel told The Great Domaines of Burgundy author Remington Norman, “The only way of improving quality is to review what has been done and achieved before.”

For Lafarge, this means everything from using only sélection massale cuttings for replanting to a very minimal use of new oak for aging. As with his fellow Volnaysien Marquis D’Angerville’s wines, Michel and Frédéric allow the wine to essentially “make itself.”

The fruit is picked at ideal ripeness, destemmed, given a long, cool fermentation with the native yeasts, and all handling of the wine, including extraction and movement is gentle to preserve its quintessential Volnay delicacy. As Michel told Remington Norman, “Every pump is bad.”

The results are stunningly pure Volnays of haunting perfume, underpinned by the firm structure for extended aging. They are quintessential examples of the Burgundian model of intensity without heaviness, deceptively long-lived for their exhilarating elegance.

"Charming plummy fruit aroma, and abundant extract and substance. Oddly, the wine – almost a year on at the time of tasting – is still fairly strict, but beyond this there is great potential. The grapes are from three-quarters of a hectare planted to old vines in the red clay soils near the top of the slope on the southern end of Beaune near Pommard." - 93 Points, Decanter

"Rich aromas of dark cherries, earth and underbrush. Savory and tight, with white pepper and good fruit coated by fine-grained tannins. Delicious, long and almost approachable. Drink from 2027." - 94 Points, James Suckling

Producer: Domaine Michel Lafarge

Country: France

Region: Burgundy

Varietal: Pinot Noir

Appellation: Volnay 1er Cru

Vintage: 2023

Size: 750ml