Domaine Michel Lafarge Les Mitans, Volnay Premier Cru, France

拉法熱莊園米丹（沃爾奈一級園）紅葡萄酒

點擊次數：4352

Firm yet well-balanced tannins support a core of expressive dark fruit as the 2008 Volnay Les Mitans opens up in the glass. The Mitans impresses for its generous personality, fabulous length and exceptional overall balance. It is a dazzling wine. Anticipated maturity: 2013-2023. A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet, various American importers, including: Martin Scott Wines, Little Neck, NY; tel. (516) 327-0808; Veritas Imports, Beverly Hills, CA; tel. (310) 205-3803; Toepfer Imports LLC, CO; tel. (303) 818-7640

Tart cherry and rhubarb are tinged with vanilla, cardamom, heliotrope, and rose hip in the nose of the Lafarges’ 2008 Volnay Mitans, and the tart red fruits are accepted by chalk and fruit pit on the palate and in this wine’s long finish, for a firm, clean, bright, slightly austere overall impression. This highly distinctive wine is among those of its vintage on which opinions are bound to differ, some lovers of high-acid white wines who see Pinot as Riesling’s potentially nearest dark-skinned kin being more enthusiastic than my rating reflects; and others finding this wine exaggerated in brightness and slightly emaciated. I like it a lot; can imagine some interesting food pairings already in its youth; and would watchfully cellar some with 8-10 year’s anticipation. Frederic and Michel Lafarge are understandably enthusiastic about their admittedly millerandage-, hail-, and triage-reduced 2008 crop, but insisted that rot was not a significant problem. And even the hail, they report, was minimal in their portions of Clos des Chenes and Caillerets, being largely confined to certain village and generic sectors. All of the 2008s here (even of minor appellation) were still in barrel when I tasted them in March, and would, as usual at this address, be assembled only immediately before bottling. Malos were late here by the estate’s normal standards, but still largely finished by August, and the Lafarges insist that they did not have musts with unusually high levels of malic acidity, in regard to which Frederic observes that a matter of just a few days in picking date in 2008 could make a big chemical difference. Michel Lafarge opines that one needs several months after malo to let a young red Burgundy collect and express itself before one ought even to contemplate bottling, in light of which he cannot comprehend – much less agree with – the many growers who bottled 2008s during the winter. He also emphatically resists the suggestion that 2008 is, in any sense, a throwback to the old normalcy – a subject on which Michel Lafarge has to be one of Burgundy’s most seasoned experts – pointing out that there wasn’t really any need to chaptalize the 2008s, which came in largely in the upper 12s. (Alcohol levels were slightly higher in the impressive 2007s, nearly all of which were picked the first week in September.)A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet (various importers), fax 011-33-3-80-24-29-70