Top Meursault and Montrachet 2020 en primeur wines

Among the whites, the best of the Meursault Perrières are breathtaking, and there are marvellous wines from Meursault Gouttes d'Or and Bouchères as well. In Puligny-Montrachet, look for the Premiers Crus La Truffière, Caillerets, Folatières and Champ Gain, while in Chassagne, the Les Chaumées and La Grand Montagne were particularly good. Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of Charles' top-scoring Meursault and Montrachet 2020 wines [subscriber-content]This will give you a good selection from the top villages of the Côte de Beaune. The good news is that many of these will be approachable young, yet the best of the reds will last 30 years or more and the whites at least 20 years. See the score table listing Charles' top Côte de Beaune 2020 wines all scoring 95 points or above See all 650 Burgundy 2020 tasting notes and scores In Meursault, Brian Seve of Domaine de Montille seemed very content with results: ‘The profiles of the 2018s and 2020s have some similarities, but the level of acidity in 2020 is more evident,’ says Seve. ‘Because of the concentration, they taste as though there is higher acidity, even if pH is largely the same, and for the red wines this appearance of freshness keeps the fruit profile more in the red than black. Ultimately, all the alcohol levels are around 13%. My Beaune Premier Cru Les Sizies is 12.8% for example; nothing is chaptalised and nothing is acidified.’ Paul Delorme, cellarmaster at Domaine Roulot, seemed equally pleased: ‘We picked from the 20th of August through to the 29th, beginning with [regional-level] Grandes Coutures on the Puligny side and finishing on the Volnay side. Everything was about 13% alcohol, with a pH of around 3.2 (3.22 for the Bourgogne Blanc). 2020 is the vintage that rediscovers the energy of the 2017s,' he concludes. Quick links: See further analysis and top-scoring wines of the following areas:

Côte de Beaune | Côte de Nuits | Mâconnais | Côte Chalonnaise

Morey-St-Denis | Gevrey-Chambertin | Chambolle-Musigny | Pommard and Volnay | Vosne-Romanée

Benoît Riffault of Domaine Etienne Sauzet in Puligny concurs: ‘The 2020s are refreshing but not brisk. We started picking on the 22nd of August. The early-ripening sites with thin, stony soils retain lots of freshness, while those with deeper clay soils are more compact and dense.’ Jean-Marc Blain of Domaine Blain-Gagnard expanded this thought, noting that acidity levels improve as the soil recovers from its excess potassium of the 1960s and 70s. Even in 2020, the pH levels were between 3.2-3.3, with moderate alcohol levels. His niece, Caroline Lestimé of Jean-Noël Gagnard, agrees, taking as an example her Chassagne-Montrachet premier cru Les Chaumées: ‘The yield was 21 hl/ha; normally it is 58 hl/ha,’ she reveals. Across the board we are down at least 30-40% due to drought, millerandage and frost, but the results are really concentrated and very fine.’ [/subscriber-content] See tasting notes and scores for Charles Curtis MW's top-scoring Meursault and Montrachet 2020 wines: [wine-collection] Related content: Burgundy 2020 en primeur: Full report plus top-scoring wines Top 2020 Côte Mâconnais en primeur wines Top 2020 Côte de Nuits en primeur wines