Solid Passion
Michel Lafarge
(Volnay)
Good Volnay counts to our favourite wine. Complex, graceful wines with fine acidity and fragrances you only can dream of.
Fine Volnay? - A stonewall as if it belonged to a castle. Within a great, mostly closed wooden gate, a small door and the in the wall embedded family coat-of-arms. Behind in the seller there lie one of the best Volnays that are produced year by year - in the house of Michel Lafarge.
The last few years we used to be lowered into his seller in his slow freight elevator, but this time his son showed us small stairs aside leading down, because some people were already degustating. Lafarge's cellar is labyrinthic and impressed with darkness and dust buried, old vintages kept for the family piling up in every corner. We tasted the bottled 97s which we tried last year from the barrel.
reds:
Bourgogne 1997
Lafarge's 'simple' Bourgogne probably count to the best ones what is bottled under this general appellation. Its vineyards are placed near Volnay and the character reminds very much of Volnay! Some years of maturing should be granted, but young it tastes rather seducing, too.
Rather dark. Ripe red of cherries. In the fragrance fir-wood soil. In the mouth also slight notes of resin with fruity aromas of dark cherries. Super Bourgogne. Puts the one or the other Volnay in the shade.
Volnay 1997
Dark. Almost like the juice of black currant. Intensive bouquet, some vanilla. In the mouth cherry, with a bite, good acidity, long and worm finish. Rich, but very elegant wine.
Volnay 1er Cru Clos de Chenes 1997
Even darker. In the fragrance black currant, bacon, leather, herbs, blackberry, deepness. Within the taste good blackberries, superb tannin, notes of vanilla. Complex, very long and fruity. Not too much acidity, but perhaps it is hidden beneath all the fruit which seemed to have developed compared to the last year's barrel sample and is now a bit darker.
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