2008 Domaine Michel Lafarge Beaune Les Greves 1er Cru

Ripe plum and red fruit aromas – with their distilled shadows – as well as ocean spray in the nose of the Lafarge 2008 Beaune Greves presage its palate of tart fruit, saline minerality, and piquancy of fruit pits. High-toned hints of leather as well as estate-atypical vanilla from the (admittedly small) share of new wood point toward the likelihood that this wine’s fruit is not nearly so robust as that of the majority of its siblings. Furthermore, there is a bit of gum-numbing astringency in an otherwise invigorating finish of this 2008, one I’d recommend either enjoying within the next couple of years, or else cellaring very watchfully. The Lafarges insist this came from entirely healthy, promisingly ripe and flavorful fruit, and perhaps it will show better in a year or so, though I see no reason (given it hasn’t been racked much less bottled) to suppose that such improvement will come short term. “A Beaune cru,” insists Michel Lafarge, “always lacks the youthful charm and elegance of a Volnay and is harder to define early-on.” 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