2014 Mâcon-Uchizy Les Maranches

Dominique Lafon was the first top-quality Côte d’Or grower to make a major investment in the Mâconnais when he purchased seven hectares of vines in Milly-Lamartine in 1999. According to winemaker/chef de cave Caroline Gon, who has been in charge here since 2006, the original vines were east-facing, on “fresh soils” on the mid-slope, far from the Saône—“like the Côte Beaune.” Since then, Lafon has expanded the estate to 25 hectares, with purchases in Chardonnay, Uchizy and Viré-Clessé. He also co-owns the exciting Clos des Quarts with his old friend Olivier Merlin.

Winemaker Gon described 2014 as “a very great vintage that brought beautiful grapes with no problems, and very easy fermentations. The wines have great fruit and acidity but there’s nothing harsh about them." The estate is certified organic and vinifies with indigenous yeasts. Gon uses tanks to make the Mâcon-Villages wines and foudres and demi-muids for the rest, using a bit of new oak only for Pouilly-Fuissé. As of vintage 2014, the wines here are bottled with DIAM corks; as a result, the levels of free sulfur at bottling will be reduced from 35 parts per million to 25 to 30.

“We were cursed in 2013,” Gon told me, noting that half of the harvest took place before the heavy rains of early October and half afterwards. The Mâcon-Milly-Lamartine was the most affected, but the vines in Uchizy were also picked after the rain.