Winemaker Notes
Sourced from multiple parcels in the Viré commune.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Pronounced stone fruit, chalk and flinty notes on the nose. There's a generous fruit intensity to the ambitious palate, with vivacious citrus fruit at its crunchy core. The oak-spice infusion is well-integrated, and this promises to age well.
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Wine Spectator
Intense lemon, apple, nut oil, mineral and spice flavors take on a textural edge in this white that's creamy midpalate, finishing smooth and long. Drink now through 2024.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Viré-Clessé wafts from the glass with notes of musky peach and dried white flowers, framed by sublet reduction. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, tense and racy, with good depth at the core and an attractive sense of completeness. It will need some time in the cellar to unwind after bottling, but it's an elegant, vibrant interpretation of the appellation that ranks as one of Lafon's best cuvées this year.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Inhabiting the best of the upper half of the Mâconnais, Viré-Clessé, created from the delineation of the two top Mâcon Villages, produces lively, charming and full-bodied whites (of Chardonnay). Lemon balm, verbena, white peach, and mint evolve with graceful age to quince jam, spice, pine and brown butter. The aromatic intensity of Viré-Clessé suits itself to herb-laden poultry, as well as sautéed shrimp or vegetables. It is also the perfect partner to Camembert or goat cheese.