2017 Volnay Caillerets

The 2017 Volnay 1er Cru Les Caillerets unfurls in the glass with a classy bouquet of crunchy cassis, red berries, dried flowers and dark chocolate that's still comparatively primary, with little hint of the tertiary complexity to come. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied, chalky and tensile with a firm core of ripe fruit and juicy balancing acids. As is invariably the case, this Caillerets will demand a decade or more of bottle age before it truly shows its hand. After the 2017 vintage, half of the parcel was ripped up for replanting, so quantities will be more than usually limited in the years to come.

Barrel sample of final blend. Red soils over limestone for minerality. 15% new oak. Always the most mineral – rock always shows in the wine. Named after the stones. All the Lafarge wines are relatively pale though it is hard to see in the cellar. Amazing finesse on the nose. Scented but not as sweet fruited as some, more stony and precise. Then lots of fruit in the mouth, sweetly spicy with fruit spice not oak spice, generous and rounded and still with that fine, dry mineral core. (JH)