Domaine Lafarge-Vial Fleurie 2023

Fleurie is known as the "Queen of the Beaujolais Crus," famous for its sunny slopes of pink granite and the elegant, perfumed Gamay they produce — and it's fitting that this was the very first site Frédéric Lafarge and his wife Chantal Vial chose when they launched their Beaujolais project in 2014, bringing the same Burgundian rigour the Lafarge family has applied in Volnay for two centuries. This village-level Fleurie is a blend of two lieux-dits — Bel Air, with vines planted in 1950 and the 1960s, and Sarcillon (also spelled Cercillon), a south-southeast-facing parcel the family gradually expanded to a full hectare — both on classic decomposed granite soil. In keeping with Lafarge tradition, the fruit is hand-harvested, mostly destemmed with a modest 15% whole-cluster addition, fermented on ambient yeast in concrete tank, and aged around a year in a mix of older 228 and 350-litre barrels and foudre.

The result shows exactly the lift and finesse the appellation is celebrated for: vivid strawberry and raspberry fruit meet white powdery blossom, cherry, orange zest, and a gently spiced, granite-driven grip, with John Gilman calling the 2023 "full-bodied, complex, poised and soil-driven," built with enough tannin to reward a couple of years in the cellar before fully blossoming. Jasper Morris and Vinous have both scored recent vintages in the low 90s, praising its persistence and harmonious balance.