The 2023 Clos du Château des Ducs from the Lafarge family is another absolutely stunning wine in the making! The wine’s aromatic constellation is refined, deep and precise, offering up notes of sweet cassis, black plums, bitter chocolate, gamebird, a very complex foundation of dark soil tones, woodsmoke and cedar. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, impeccably balanced and deep and sappy at the core, with great transparency down to the soil, tangy acids, ripe tannins and a very, very long, complex and elegant finish. I love this wine’s potential! (Drink between 2040-2090)

The 2023 Volnay Clos du Château des Ducs 1er Cru underwent a later malo and so had been racked just a fortnight before my visit. Despite that, it has an outstanding bouquet of beautifully defined blackcurrant and raspberry fruit laced with iris flowers. The palate was still a bit gassy, yet the fruit is very pure with a hint of licorice toward the finish. Great potential but I suspect it will require longer in bottle than Lafarge's other Premier Crus.(NM)

Note: from 50+ year old vines; a monopole of the domaine; destemmed manually. Much like the Caillerets, this is exuberantly floral on the elegant and airy nose of spice, cool red and dark berries and wisps of exotic tea. The strikingly fine middle weight flavors possess superb intensity as well as obvious minerality that really seems to build on the long, balanced and markedly firm finale. A wine of both style and class.*Burghound Sweet Spot Outstanding!*