The Lafon name is synonymous with Meursault. Dominique is a descendant of Jules Lafon, who married a girl from Meursault and inherited a few vineyards. In 1923, as the mayor of Meursault, he revived the tradition of celebrating the end of grape harvest with a meal, bringing together the workers with the owners and their friends. It is known as “La Paulée de Meursault,” an integral part of Burgundy’s “Three Glorious Days,” which also includes the spotlight charity auction at the Hospices de Beaune as well as a formal dinner at Clos de Vougeot. The Lafon estate of today was greatly shaped by Jules’ inheritance and his relationships with sharecroppers. When Dominique's father, René, took-over in the 1950s, he re-planted the vineyards and made a dramatic step towards estate bottled wines (no purchased fruit).
The idea that a producer would own his/her land, farm his/her land, and make his/her own wine was ambitious at the time—requiring grit, patience, and foresight. Without a doubt, Dominique Lafon inherited these characteristics and pointed the domaine in a “never looking back” direction in the mid-1980s. He gradually terminated the family’s long-term leases on vineyards and became fascinated with organic cultivation in the late 1980s. By 1992, the estate was organic, but Dominique aimed higher. He experimented with biodynamic farming on three hectares. In comparison to the organic vineyards, he noticed that his biodynamic vineyards looked better: vines fit and perfectly lean, healthy grapes with spunk and glow. Dominique converted the entire estate to biodynamics in 1998 (in the world’s most unforgiving wine region, no less).
In the glass it is a deep yellow-gold, its youthful green reflections now dissipated, and the nose incorporates encroaching ‘secondary’ aromas including baked yellow apple, bosc pear, wild mushrooms, lime blossoms, wilted white flowers, hazelnut, fresh cream, and lees. Medium-plus in body and still framed by fresh, even bracing acidity, I can see this ageing a good decade or more from now if kept well. If you’re curious and can’t wait, decant it about 60 minutes before serving in Burgundy stems.