Usually we feature older wines in Cellar Favorites, but given the understandable trepidation consumers have around cellaring white Burgundy, I thought it would be interesting to see how a handful of highly touted white Burgundies are faring. To be honest, I had a selfish reason for wanting to taste these wines. I bought many of the Lafon 2010s (it is my daughter’s birth year), but I did so not really knowing when the wines would be ready to drink or how long they will last. I think I can at least offer a view on the first part of that question, but the second, happily, remains a question mark, in the best sense of the term.Vinous readers will recall that 2010 is unusual in the Côte de Beaune for its combination of both elevated ripeness and high acidity, two attributes one rarely finds in the same vintage. At Lafon, the 2010s were positively electric when I tasted them from barrel and then from bottle. Today, a few years later, the 2010 whites are every bit as impressive. Although projecting drinking windows for white Burgundy these days is fraught with peril, based on this showing all of the 2010s need at least a few more years in bottle with the possible exception of the Goutte d’Or.Energetic, precise and nuanced to the core, Lafon’s 2010 Meursault Goutte d’Or offers terrific energy to match its chiseled personality. The Goutte d’Or is the most weightless and lifted of these four wines, but it nevertheless possesses gorgeous energy and fabulous overall balance. This is an impressive showing from the 2010. - VM
VM92December 2015
The 2010 Meursault Goutte d’Or fleshes out in the glass with serious richness. Yellow stone fruits, smoke and spices are all layered beautifully. The Goutte d’Or shows the richer, more intense side of village-level Meursault. This is an effortless, gracious wine laced with deep, rich layers of fruit and a totally inviting finish. I can’t remember tasting a more polished and flat-out appealing young Goutte d’Or. - WA
WA91August 2012
An expressive and ripe nose speaks of apple, pear and floral notes that include spice hints. There is plenty of volume and mid-palate concentration to the rich, generous and full-bodied flavors that are unusually refined in the context of the appellation, all wrapped in an energetic, linear and impressively persistent finish. This should reward up to a decade of cellar time. - BH
BH93June 2012