Still in tank when I tasted it in June, Duboeuf’s 2010 Morgon Domaine des Versauds offers ripe purple plum and dark cherry tinged with coriander and shadowed aromatically by suggestions of plum and kirsch distillate. A welcome exuberance of juicy fruit allows the piquancy of fruit pit to serve as stimulating counterpoint rather than compounding the bitterness borne of extraction that one finds in some of the Duboeuf 2010s. A rare instance where the 2010 version of a wine is more convincing than the 2009, this excellent value will probably also merit several years of attention. George Duboeuf and his estate-collaborators – for further general comments on whom consult my issue 190 report – harvested from mid-September into the first week of October and pronounced themselves reasonably satisfied with the size of their crop as well as its quality. Most of the fruit came in at between 12-12.5% alcohol, with only a small share being chaptalized. And while the manner of extraction typically practiced chez Duboeuf strikes me as serving for rather uniformly deep colors, Duboeuf remarked that the 2010s colored with particular, and surprising, ease. The percentage of wines bottled at the time of my June visit was, predictably, considerably higher than had been the case for the 2009s at the same point on the calendar. Observing conventions established in the aforementioned previous report, I have made reference to aging potential only for any wines that I expect might be worth following for longer than a couple of years, and where I have identified a wine solely by appellation, it represents a so-called “Selections Georges Duboeuf” cuvee, adorned with his company’s signature flower labels. I also tasted on this occasion several late-released, wooded “prestige” bottlings – rendered in 1,000-2,500 volumes – which however were not destined to appear in U.S. markets.Importer: William Deutsch & Son Ltd., White Plains, NY; tel. (914) 251-9463