2021 Volnay Village

It is always a pleasure seeing Frédéric Lafarge and his daughter Clothilde at one of Volnay’s most esteemed addresses. However, reputation did not spare them the onslaught of frost that dramatically reduced their cuvées. “The vines pushed hard the week before, then we had 5cm of snow and temperatures down to -5° Celsius,” Lafarge tells me. “The snow was not forecasted. We lost 85% of the Bourgogne Aligoté. It was a difficult season, fresh and cool but with intermittent clement weeks that helped, especially the second half of August and the beginning of September. We started the picking on 22 September and over the next seven days. The Aligoté was picked on 9 September. We had good phenolic maturity with just a tiny amount of botrytis. The whites were racked three weeks ago and the reds a week ago [mid-October]. The alcohol is between 12% and 13% without chaptalisation. For the first time ever, all the Volnay Premier Crus were blended together to create 11 barrels of Volnay Premier Cru. I enjoyed what was hopefully a one-time experience.”

This was a tricky vintage to navigate. I’m a massive fan of Lafarge, as my reviews stretching back years will attest, though they took the brunt of frost damage that was much worse than say, Pierrick Bouley just around the corner. Don’t get me wrong, these are pretty and soulful 2021s, but the diminished quantity of barrels means that they had little to play with, less flexibility, so inevitably, they had no choice but to combine them together. I don’t get the tingles down my spine tasting the 2021s as I have in other years, yet there is something truthful about Lafarge’s wines, unafraid to translate the growing season for what it was. Compared to other vintages, I will happily consume these wines over the next dozen or so years. Do look out for their Beaujolais wines under the Domaine Lafarge-Vial label, particularly their excellent 2021 Fleurie La Joie du Palais.