2010 Meursault Goutte d’Or 1er Cru

Jean-Michel Gaunoux, who stopped stirring the lees with the 2004 vintage for fear of getting premature oxidation, described 2011 as "a good, fresh vintage with minerality. The wines will be easy but will age well. They're more taut than the 2007s; they're straight, like the 2008s." Gaunoux harvested at the beginning of September, and said his typical 2011 came in with 12.7% potential alcohol and was chaptalized to 13%. He's been adding SO2 bit by bit but will not rack for the first time until after the 2012 harvest. He planned to bottle the 2011s in December, following a month in tank and a fining.

The Gaunoux family goes back several hundred years in the Cote d'Or, but Jean-Michel Gaunoux, who previously worked with his father Francois at the family domain, established his own small operation in Meursault in 1990. He takes a light touch with manipulation, as well as with the use of new oak, and the few bottles of his wines that have come my way in recent years have indicated they they age gracefully i bottle. Gaunoux does a long (24 to 48 hours) debourbage. He ultimately allows much of the alcoholic fermentation to finish in barrel. He noted that he had not done any lees stirring since 2004, and that he has cut his sulfur doses in half. Gaunoux told me he racks after the next vintage, then assembles his wines in cuves, where they remain for a month before he bottles them.