Lafarge Vial Cote de Brouilly 2021

Mont Brouilly's blue stone is the calling card of Côte de Brouilly, and Lafarge-Vial's parcel, the lieu-dit Brulhié, hangs southeast-facing on its steep slopes: two thirds of a hectare of Gamay planted in the late 1960s in granite threaded with blue rock, plowed by horse because tractors cannot hold the grade. The domaine is the Beaujolais venture of Frédéric and Chantal Lafarge of Volnay, established in 2014 and farmed biodynamically from the outset, now certified by both Demeter and AB. Cellar work mirrors their Côte d'Or practice: hand harvesting, mostly destemmed fruit with a share of whole clusters, ambient-yeast fermentation, and roughly a year in used barrels and foudres. A site-driven Côte de Brouilly built the Burgundian way.