2018 Fleurie Joie du Palais
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Tasting notes
Lieu-dit with steep slope. South of La Madone on pink granite. All worked by hand and some by horse. Destemmed by hand. Thick and sweet – less obviously Fleurie than their village Fleurie. Lots of ripe tannin. Needs time. (JR)
Critic scores
Average Score
Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Beautifully vibrant and precise, the 2018 Fleurie Joie de Palais wafts from the glass with a pretty bouquet of raspberries, red plums, peonies and sweet soil tones. Medium to full-bodied, lively and elegant, it's built around fine, powdery tannins and a tangy spine of acidity. Built for the cellar, this will show beautifully after four or five years of bottle aging, and it will continue to improve for a decade or more. This 1.5-hectare parcel of steeply sloping decomposed pink granite was planted in the 1950s.
Not made in 2017 (hailed, so blended in). Hand-destemmed. Pink granite with saprolite. Deepish crimson. More tangy on the nose than the straight Fleurie. Still ripe but with a wild brightness too. Creamy, deep-pile tannins, thick but soft. Generous and fresh more in fruit profile than acidity though the freshness comes through on the finish. This note replaces the one I wrote in the Lafarge cellar in Volnay because that bottle did not seem totally fresh (it was in a bottle that was half empty and had been sampled over a period of a week using a Coravin). (JH)