Lafon

Tall and lean, with a hawkish nose and a wry wit, he crafts wines which are a little leaner and racier than Lafon's, a style that has made him a favorite with sommeliers and other acid freaks i.e., fans of high-acid wines.

A Place of Great Whites Confronts a Dark Mystery Jay McInerney 2011

Lafon and Roulot are basically the Han Solo and Luke Skywalker of this small village in Burgundy's Côte de Beaune, source of one of the world's most famous and coveted white wines.

A Place of Great Whites Confronts a Dark Mystery Jay McInerney 2011

Lafon and Roulot, along with Meursault's other wine makers, are beginning to confront.

A Place of Great Whites Confronts a Dark Mystery Jay McInerney 2011

The young Lafon renovated the cellar and experimented with organic farming in the vineyards, finally converting to biodynamics, the holistic agricultural system inspired by the teachings of Rudolph Steiner.

A Place of Great Whites Confronts a Dark Mystery Jay McInerney 2011

Thanks in part to some deep-pocketed American investors, the chain smoking Mr. Lafon, who looks a little like a shorter, weathered version of Liam Neeson, was essentially splitting the old René Manuel estate, which includes some of Meursault's best vineyards, with his friend and neighbor Jean-Marc Roulot.

A Place of Great Whites Confronts a Dark Mystery Jay McInerney 2011

Mr. Lafon, for one, is not afraid to talk about premox, and he is attacking the problem on several fronts, working with scientists at the University of Bordeaux, experimenting with different corks and cork coatings as well as higher levels of sulfur.

A Place of Great Whites Confronts a Dark Mystery Jay McInerney 2011

When I visited Dominique Lafon at his château in Meursault, he was a little bleary-eyed, but exuberant, having just returned from Paris, where he had celebrated the completion of a complicated trans-Atlantic deal that significantly increased the vineyard acreage he would be tending.

A Place of Great Whites Confronts a Dark Mystery Jay McInerney 2011

And while she had no part in the recent sale of Domaine René Manuel, her former employee Dominique Lafon, who now runs the family domain in Meursault, was one of the principals in the deal, one of many top Burgundian producers she continues to work with.

In the Domain of the Earth Mother of Burgundy Jay McInerney 2011

We had some transporting moments, but we also experienced some real disappointments; four out of 15 bottles suffered from some degree of oxidation, including the two bottles that had us all drooling in anticipation—the 2002 Perrières from Roulot and Lafon.

A Place of Great Whites Confronts a Dark Mystery Jay McInerney 2011

But first, some history: Domaine Lafon came into existence when Dominique's great-grandfather, Comte Jules Lafon, married a Mademoiselle Bloch who owned land in Meursault.

A Place of Great Whites Confronts a Dark Mystery Jay McInerney 2011