Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2016

The 2016 Bourgogne Pinot Noir has a delightful, straightforward but pure bouquet with wild strawberry and cranberry scents. The palate has a sorbet-like freshness on the entry—Morello cherry mixed with cranberry, good structure, with a very well-balanced finish. Very fine, even if I find just as much pleasure from Lafarge's Passetoutgrain this year. Domaine Michel Lafarge is finally getting the recognition it has long deserved. As tastes have swung away from the overripe, labored wines of the 1990s and toward what might be termed a more classic style, cognoscenti have begun to proselytize the wines of Michel and Frédéric Lafarge as the epitome of red Côte de Beaune. It encapsulates everything that makes Burgundy great, not just the quality of the wines that have no need for a grand cru to demonstrate their worth, but the simplicity of the winemaking, the tenets of the winemakers themselves, their tiny vaulted cellars covered in thick black and white mold and the manner in which the gauntlet has passed from father to son over decades (all the more precious as vineyards swap hands for millions of euros elsewhere). Frédéric was there as usual to greet me at the door of their Volnay winery, leading me downstairs in what remains the slowest descending lift in the world. One interesting point Frédéric made was that he regards 2016 as a vintage in which vines naturally found their balance and that it is not a question of low or high yields. Irrespective of yield, there is no question that Lafarge followed their exemplary 2015s with a range of superlative wines that must rank among the best in the Côte de Beaune. There simply is not a winemaker that conjures such magically pure, tensile, flavor-rich, mineral-driven Volnays that set the senses alight. From the Les Pitures to the Clos des Ducs, each Volnay seemed to ratchet up the quality higher and higher.

Score: 87

Neal Martin, Wine Advocate, RobertParker.com 29 December 2017