Viré-Clessé, Les Héritiers du Comte Lafon 2022

Les Héritiers du Comte Lafon is the baby brother of the exalted Domaine Comtes Lafon in Meursault, though with 26 ha of vines now, it is not quite so ‘baby’ anymore. Lower prices and greater availability give Burgundy lovers the chance to experience some of the magic of the Lafon Meursaults.

The wines are made from its own domaine-grown grapes at a winery in Milly-Lamartine, in the hills at the back of the Mâconnais. We visited it back in 1999 just after Dominique Lafon completed the purchase and were immediately struck by the bowl of vines behind the winery, grapes from these going into the Milly-Lamartine wine, with one mid-slope parcel bottled separately as Clos du Four. We have since travelled up-hill-and-down-dale with Dominique exploring the expanded estate from the cooler, more elevated Le Monsard vineyard in nearby Bussières to Uchizy, 18 miles away, where he bought 6 ha of vines in 2003. These include Les Maranches, on the scrubby hill visible from the autoroute, which has a proportion of the intriguing Chardonnay Musqué clone, and Clos de la Crochette in the neighbouring village of Chardonnay. There was further expansion in into Viré-Clessé, then Mâcon-Prissé, Saint-Véran and Pouilly-Fuissé from the 2015 vintage.