Tasting with Dominique Lafon in the cellars of Domaine des Comtes Lafon in the Burgundian village of Meursault is always a pleasure but last December Lafon’s grin was particularly wide. “These 2006 reds are so lovely,” he said while drawing a couple of samples of Volnay from the top of a barrel, “I want to drink them straight away.”

At Lafon they picked reds slightly later than their neighbours and their whites slightly earlier, and seem to me to have thereby managed to make the most of the many challenges presented by the 2006 growing season.