Domaine Michel Lafarge Volnay Organic Biodynamic 2020 750ml

Frédéric Lafarge described the 2020 "growing season as really pretty easy as we escaped the frost risk and there was very little disease pressure. Despite the hot and very dry conditions, our vines didn't really suffer much hydric stress. The vegetative cycle was extremely advanced though and remarkably, the flowering was finished by the end of May and there are vintages that I can remember when it hadn't even started at that point! We picked most of the fruit between the 22nd and the 28th of August.

I say most of the fruit as we waited to pick the aligoté between the 6th and the 17th of September. In both cases, the fruit was super-clean, in fact there was almost no need to sort. Yields were by no means high though at 30 hl/ha they were much better than the 18 hl/ha we realized in 2019. Potential alcohols were similar to those of 2019 as well as nothing was higher than 13.5%. As we have been doing for several vintages now, we destemmed the Caillerets, Pitures, Clos du Château des Ducs and the Mitans by hand.

We did a very soft vinification over a period of 13 to 14 days as the skins were thick and the extractability of the polyphenols high, so it wasn't necessary to manipulate the fruit much to obtain the necessary stuffing for the reds. Regarding the quality of 2020, what strikes me the most about them is the purity, though they also have really beautiful balance. I don't necessarily like them better than our 2019s, but they do offer two different and highly attractive expressions. Stylistically, they remind me of either a slightly less ripe 1990 or perhaps the 1959 vintage."

Readers may recall that I could scarcely have been more enthusiastic about the Lafarge 2019s but the quality of their 2020s is just as good if not better. If you can find them, don't hesitate as they are, almost across the board, stunning.