Michel Lafarge Volnay 1er Clos des Chenes 1999

Decanter : When to drink: 2024 to 2045

Robert Parker: Lafarge's superb 1999 Volnay 1er Cru Clos des Chênes is just entering late adolescence, and while it remains a young wine, it is beginning to make for interesting drinking. Unfurling in the glass with notes of dark chocolate, espresso roast, orange rind, dark fruits and rich soil tones, the wine is full-bodied, deep and layered, with a classy sense of reserve, excellent concentration and refined but chalky tannins that convey a strong Clos des Chênes signature. Three decades of fireworks are just beginning! 95/100

Jancis Robinson: Possibly the most thrilling of these 1999s to taste now. The price hikes for Lafarge's 1999s seem to have been justified. Rich, ripe and really glorious. Some sottobosco (undergrowth) notes. Full, round, lovely even now. An intense throat-warmer. Everything is there in place. This wine is so flattering that it's only at the very end of the tasting experience that you realise there is masses of tannin underneath. Very long-flavoured. 19/20