The 2012 Meursault Porusots 1er Cru has a very refined and floral bouquet with yellow flowers, wet rock and quince. The palate is crisp and vibrant with impressive minerality and tension, gradually building to a lilting, spicy finish. This has great promise.

The 2011 Meursault 1er Cru Les Poruzots has a complex bouquet with touches of dried honey, spice, orange peel and earth that draws you in. The palate is well-balanced with a fine bead of acidity, plenty of primal, almost tropical fruit with a peachy, generous finish. Very fine. I have intermittently encountered the wines of Lucien Le Moine over the years and even spent an evening dining with the man behind it, Mounir, on one admittedly inebriated dinner a few years ago. But it was time to visit the winery tucked away down a side-street in Beaune, and taste through an enormous selection of wines with the man himself. Since his first vintage in 1999, he has focused on buying fruit that expresses individual lieux-dits, so that his cellar consists of dozens of micro-Cuvees that take a whole morning to taste through. He is an extremely principled winemaker with strong, some might say controversial beliefs. Even before entering the barrel cellar, he opined that too many white Burgundies are picked too late and that both the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations are completed too rapidly. Mornir likes two summers to complete the elevage and feels that too many vignerons bottle too early. He also used minimal sulphur for his wines, informing me that though his wines often start out deeper in color, they tend to become paler as they mature in bottle. I asked him about his opinion on the two vintages that we tasted together, the 2010 and 2011. “The 2010 and 2011 vintages have a lot of common points: low yields, fresh summer, both starting fruity and perhaps a little uniform,” he explained. “Then a year later, their personalities started coming out. The evolution of both vintages is similar. After a year and half they began to gain depth. When we picked 2010, people were talking about a light vintage, but now that is forgotten because they are so powerful. In 2011 they did the same. The 2010s achieved maturity naturally, but in 2011 we had to chaptalize most of the wines a little. I think it is an old style of Burgundy, how the wines were made before 1995. In 2010 we talk about tannins, but in 2011 we talk about more dry extract. You feel the presence of the wine but they are not dry. The 2010s finish with firm tannins, so in terms of longevity I think they will close down in a couple of years and then need another eight years. But I don’t think this will happen with the 2011. They are more like 2001 and 2007 that show their harmony early. They will be enjoyable over the next 15 years. The purity of the terroir in 2011 is exceptional, whereas in 2010 you have the power.” Apart from my marathon morning journey through Lucien le Moine’s 2011s, we sashayed over to the 2010s to see how a dozen were shaping up in bottle. These were bottled around August 2012 with a little sulphur in June. The bottles were double decanted at 90 minutes before tasting. Importers: Vintus LLC, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (914) 769-3000; Atherton Imports, Menlo Park, CA; tel. (650) 328-6639

I find a little more finesse in the 2010 Meursault Poruzots as it swirls around in the glass with a head spinning melange of crushed rocks, smoke, stone fruits and spices. This is a marvelously complex wine that captures the essence of the vineyard, village and vintage. The aromas and flavors built relentlessly to the textured, inviting and impeccably finish. The Poruzots is pure refinement and class. Anticipated maturity: 2015+. Proprietor Mounir Saouma thinks 2010 is a great vintage and therefore he wanted to push the boundaries as far as possible by slowing down the maturation of the wines. He kept temperatures very low in the cellar to encourage slow, long malolactic fermentations and long elevage in barrel. Among the unusual practices Saouma adopted with the 2010s is stirring the lees a full year after the harvest. At the time of my visit, in July 2012, none of the 2010 whites had been bottled, the only estate in Burgundy I know of that had still not bottled their 2010s. The wines Le Moine 2010s are big, rich and powerful. In many cases, the 2010s appear to have structures that are in the realm of reds. A number of the wines also show slight elements of botrytis that will become more pronounced over time. In addition to these wines, I also tasted the 2010 Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeot, which was too closed to properly evaluate. Importer: Vintus, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (919) 769-3000

The 2009 Meursault Poruzots comes across as rather understated after the Charmes. It shows plenty of complexity but a slightly smaller-scaled personality. White flowers, pears and crushed rocks meld together beautifully on the long, perfumed finish. This is a relatively feminine, delicate style. Anticipated maturity: 2013+. This is another stunning set of wines from proprietors Mounir Saouma and Rotem Brakim. Saouma and Brakim practice some of the most risk-taking winemaking in Burgundy, especially with regards to elevage. The wines see extended aging on the lees with minimal sulfur. I tasted the 2009s in late June 2011. At the time the wines had never been racked. Readers should note that I accidentally omitted a number of wines from my reviews of the estate’s 2009 reds, in particular the wines from Vosne-Romanee. Those notes are now posted on the site. My tasting concluded with two wines served blind. These turned out to be two 2004 Meursaults. The first wine was made with a pneumatic press and aged with 4 liters of lees per barrel, the second wine was made with a mechanical press and went into barrel with 8 liters of lees. Both wines were aged 18 months and bottled by hand. As it turns out, wine #2 was considerably fresher and much more nuanced than wine #1. Importer: Vintus, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (919) 769-3000

The 2009 Meursault Poruzots comes across as rather understated after the Charmes. It shows plenty of complexity but a slightly smaller-scaled personality. White flowers, pears and crushed rocks meld together beautifully on the long, perfumed finish. This is a relatively feminine, delicate style. Anticipated maturity: 2013+. This is another stunning set of wines from proprietors Mounir Saouma and Rotem Brakim. Saouma and Brakim practice some of the most risk-taking winemaking in Burgundy, especially with regards to elevage. The wines see extended aging on the lees with minimal sulfur. I tasted the 2009s in late June 2011. At the time the wines had never been racked. Readers should note that I accidentally omitted a number of wines from my reviews of the estate’s 2009 reds, in particular the wines from Vosne-Romanee. Those notes are now posted on the site. My tasting concluded with two wines served blind. These turned out to be two 2004 Meursaults. The first wine was made with a pneumatic press and aged with 4 liters of lees per barrel, the second wine was made with a mechanical press and went into barrel with 8 liters of lees. Both wines were aged 18 months and bottled by hand. As it turns out, wine #2 was considerably fresher and much more nuanced than wine #1.Importer: Vintus, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (919) 769-3000