Delicious, Affordable Burgundies from Gilles Lafouge in Auxey-Duresses!
While value is relative in the ever more expensive world of Burgundy, perhaps no grower offers as much value as Gilles Lafouge. The wines are precise, honest and satisfying at prices that allow for (nearly) everyday drinking as well as cellaring beautifully. John Gilman's excellent View From the Cellar concurs:
Not surprisingly, for folks who have been following the wines from Domaine Lafouge over the last decade or so, Gilles Lafouge has made utterly superb wines in the 2020 vintage. He started picking his chardonnay parcels on August 23rd and finished the last of his pinot noir parcels within the week. All of the domaine’s white wines come in between thirteen and 13.5 percent octane in this vintage and are absolutely precise, minerally-infused and very pure wines that strongly recall the wines from Domaine Roulot in their snap, lime-scented fruit tones and beautifully pure expressions of their underlying terroir. Not surprisingly, Monsieur Lafouge considers 2020 an absolutely exceptional vintage for white wines from his domaine, which he notes “have the fine acidity and minerality of 2014, but even better depth than that vintage.” Like so many estates in the Côte de Beaune, he observed that “yields for the white wines were very correct in 2020, but red wines were down on average about thirty percent in this vintage.” He felt that it was very important to keep the texture of the tannins as refined as possible in 2020, so he did no pigeages (punch-downs) at all for his red wines in this vintage and was content to simply pump over the juice for extraction, as he did not want to extract any coarseness in his tannins. His red wines are very black fruity in the style of the vintage, but also quite classically proportioned and beautifully reflective of their underlying terroir." Domaine Lafouge is definitely "under the radar" but is producing beautiful Burgundies that are superb values!
There is excellent vineyard work here, in the process to becoming organic, with very short pruning and no green harvest. Hand-harvesting and wild-yeast fermentations of course, about 10 to 25% new oak, minimal batonnage for the whites and natural clarifications. A particular standout and superb value is the "village" Auxey-Duresses Rouge - it shows pretty aromatics with lovely ripeness and balance on the palate - it's delicious now and will drink nicely over the next ten to fifteen years.
(Tasting notes are fom Mr. Gilman's "View from the Cellar" - any serious wine-lover should consider subscribing!)
