The 2018 Gaunoux Meursault Les Perrières provides a warmer-vintage counterpart to the 2016 of the same wine offered in this batch, and the contrast between the two expressions of the same vineyard is instructive. Where the 2016’s low yields and cool, concentrated character produce a wine of precision and mineral tension that rewards long cellaring, the 2018’s generous warmth and ripe conditions deliver a Meursault of greater aromatic opulence, softer natural acidity and earlier accessibility. Both represent the Gaunoux philosophy applied to the same terroir under very different growing season conditions, and together they illustrate the range of character that a talented, traditional-minded producer can find in a single named Meursault site across contrasting vintages.

The 2018 white Burgundy vintage was the warmest and most generous of the decade, producing wines of excellent ripeness, textural richness and immediate aromatic appeal that contrast with the more intellectually challenging frost-concentrated 2016 and the mineral-precise 2017. For Meursault village and village-level lieu-dit wines, 2018 delivered wines with the kind of rich, immediate enjoyment that the appellation’s best known characteristics can provide without requiring the patience that the finest Premier Crus and the most mineral-structured vintages demand. Gaunoux’s restrained winemaking approach, minimal in its use of new oak and careful in its preservation of natural acidity, should have produced a 2018 that falls in the middle of the vintage’s natural richness without tipping into the excess that lesser producers achieved in this year.

Collectors who wish to compare the character of the 2016 and 2018 Gaunoux Meursault Les Perrières side by side will find the experience instructive: the 2016 offering precision, concentration and the intellectual pleasure of a low-yield vintage wine, the 2018 providing the accessible, generous pleasures of a warm year from a producer whose winemaking intelligence prevents the vintage’s natural opulence from overwhelming the terroir’s fundamental character.

Golden yellow with a rich and generous nose of ripe white peach, butter, toasted hazelnut, vanilla spice and a warm, opulent mineral character from the 2018 vintage conditions. Full-bodied with excellent texture from rich natural concentration, good residual acidity and a long, generous, classically styled Meursault finish. Drinking well now through 2030.