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89-91 WA.
"Seven barrels of the 2017 Meursault Clos de la Baronne will be bottled exclusively for the US market, with the result of the production blended into the Meursault Village cuvée. The wine is charming and demonstrative, bursting with aromas of green orchard fruit, honeycomb and white flowers. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, ample and succulent, with a mouthwateringly saline finish. This will be hard to resist out of the gates. The 2017 vintage is an excellent year for Domaine des Comtes Lafon, where Dominique Lafon and his team seem to have attained a new level of consistency since the 2009 vintage. After the better part of two decades' experimentation and refinement, Lafon has found a mature aesthetic. What's more, he has devoted considerable attention to the question of premature oxidation, and today monitors dissolved oxygen levels at racking and bottling closely. Since the 2013 vintage, all the domaine's wines have also been bottled under Diam technical corks, and free sulfur levels and bottling practices have been adjusted accordingly. The result is wines that now realize much more reliably the quality they show in barrel. Satiny and succulent, these are some of the most charming wines in Meursault, beautifully defined by their respective climats. And 2017 is a fine vintage in red at this address, featuring for the first time a Volnay Champans derived almost exclusively from the domaine's 1921 plantings in this serious premier cru." William Kelley, Wine Advocate Interim, Jan 2019 |