Domaine Michel Lafarge Volnay Clos des Chênes 2017 750ml - Bottle Shop of Spring Lake
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Domaine Michel Lafarge Volnay Clos des Chênes 2017 750ml
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Domaine Michel Lafarge Volnay Clos des Chênes 2017

  • v96
  • wa94

750ml
$0.00
$399.00

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Domaine Michel Lafarge is one of the great producers of the wines of Burgundy, based in the Volnay appellation. The domaine is small, owning just under 25 acres of vines, and producing only about 4,000 cases annually, but the wines are models of their genres. The family has been cultivating grapes in Volnay since the early 19th Century and possibly back to the late 18th Century. Very gradually did the Lafarges accumulate, piece by piece, the portions of vineyards that comprise their domaine; these include Volnay Clos des Chênes and the wholly owned Clos du Chateau des Ducs, Beaune Grêves, Pommard Pezerolles (all Premier Cru) and parcels of Volnay village and Premier Cru, as well as Bourgogne Aligoté and Bourgogne Passetoutgrain and a village Meursault.

Lafarge was a pioneer in bottling its own wine, rather than selling the wine to a negociant, beginning with the harvest of 1934. The wines see only about 25 percent new oak, typically aging for 15 to 20 months, depending on the vintage and the vineyard. The entire domaine has been farmed on biodynamic principles since 1997-2000.

This beauty is from the premier cru vineyard of Clos des Chênes in the village of Volnay, one of the best, most sought after vineyards in all of Burgundy and considered the very best of Volnay. 

Here is a beautiful tribute to the late Michel Lafarge from the Wasserman's : 'We were asked yesterday what Michel meant as a Burgundian vigneron. But why he was so special, why he touched so many, is not because of what he meant to wine or to Burgundy. It was because of what he meant to humanity. Michel was the most dignified person we knew. He had the metal of a founding father, of a sage, of someone who would have come into our lives straight from the pages of the Old Testament. We privately referred to him as Gandalf. White hair. Baritone. Calm. Rigidly honest. Wise. And also very funny. Though we visited him in his cellar in Volnay, we might as well have been seeking the counsel of a Druid under an ancient oak tree. And if we asked him about the vintage because he was a repository of knowledge of every harvest going back to the twenties, we might as well have been asking him what to do, how to act —about life. What we never spoke about was commerce. Our most sincere condolences to the Lafarge family, to Burgundy, to humanity.' 

Vinous
  • v96

The 2017 Volnay Clos des Chênes 1er Cru has a deep, broody, almost surly bouquet that gradually unfolds in the glass to reveal blackberry, raspberry and briary aromas. The palate is medium-bodied with firm and grippy tannin on the entry. This feels saline in the mouth, very focused and almost symmetrical in style, building towards a smooth and very harmonious, yet grippy finish that lingers in the mouth. Outstanding. 94-96

Antonio Galloni, January 2019
Wine Advocate
  • wa94

The 2017 Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Chênes is the most complex and concentrated wine in the Lafarge cellar, wafting from the glass with notes of sweet plums, spices, candied peel, espresso roast and dark chocolate. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, deep and multidimensional, with a layered mid-palate framed by an abundance of chalky structuring tannins, concluding with a long, chalky finish. The Lafarge parcel is located at the northeastern extreme of Clos des Chênes where it's more sheltered from the wind than much of the vineyard, which may partially explain why it always seems to stand apart from other domaines' renditions. 92-94

William Kelley, January 2019
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No Sulfites Added
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