For reports and full tasting notes, go toTim Atkin MW's website.

Healthy medium red. Brisk aromas of red cherry, flowers and minerals. Saline and deep but youthfully reserved; a step up in concentration from the Mitans. Quite penetrating and tight on the palate, showing a juicy minty quality to the intense cherry fruit. This firmly tannic wine will need patience.

Tasted blind at the Burgfest 2014 tasting, Michel Lafarge's 2014 Volnay 1er Cru Clos du Château des Ducs has a disjointed bouquet that seems to miss the fruit intensity of its peers within this flight. This is broody, rather mean and leaves you wanting more. The palate is medium-bodied with stringy tannin, quite Pommard-like in style due to the structure and some austerity that comes through on the finish. A bit feral maybe, though I appreciate the uncompromising nature of this wine, and maybe it will meliorate in bottle. Given the pedigree of the producer, it would not surprise me to see this improve and lift toward my original banded score from barrel. Tasted September 2017.

Old and quite brown calcareous subsoil. Deep gravel on top of that.. Very majestic on the nose with many a layer already. Lots of matière here. Great charm and savour. Real class! Lovely balance. You feel as though you could drink this already! Frédéric suspects this vintage won’t close up – in which case this could be an early rewarder. Thrilling. Great energy. (JR)