Pale to medium lemon-gold colored, the 2010 d'Yquem is just now starting to strut its stuff with gregarious scents emerging of underripe mangos, fresh pineapples, poached pears and candied peel plus nuances of waxed lemons, fungi, musk perfume and wet clay. Wonderfully poised, the seductively intense fruit is offset by beautiful freshness, supporting layer upon layer of savory nut and baked-bread notions with the tantalizing exotic fruits coming through on the long, long finish. For number crunchers: 13.5% alcohol, 138 grams per liter residual sugar, and total acidity is 3.6 grams per liter H2SO4. Tempting to drink now, I’m sensing there are still a lot of latent nuances to be revealed here. So—to get that full Yquem experience—I’d give it another five years in bottle, at least, and drink it over the next 40+ years. LPB

he purity of Botrytis in this wine is so impressive with dried fruits such apple and mango. And then spicy character. Full body and very sweet but it is incredibly fresh and lively. Such class and elegance. Perfectly manicured wine. Everything in the right place. This shows a delicacy and intensity that are spellbinding. Drink in 2018.

– jamessuckling.com, November 2013

Rather restrained now, showing terrific purity and precision, with dried pineapple, persimmon and mango notes, offset by racy honeysuckle, white peach and chamomile hints. The extremely long finish sails on, switching to yet another spectrum, with green almond, green plum and coconut accents. A thread of quinine stitches this up at the very end. Best from 2020 through 2050. 8,334 cases made.

– James Molesworth (WineSpectator.com, May 2014)

Deep yellow with a golden tinge. Intense aromas of very ripe tropical fruit, beeswax, honey and raisin are lifted by a strong mineral edge. Very fresh, rich and sweet on entry, then extremely light on its feet, with refined flavors of ripe citrus, mango, papaya, honey and saffron complicated by tangy botrytis. A very bright and focused Yquem, with lively acidity and a long, smooth, floral finish. Boasts impeccable balance and lovely precision. This terrific Yquem is very stylish but less massively opulent than vintages like 1989 and 1983. Ian D'Agata

Very fresh honey and lemon and fine subtle cedar oak to smell; concentrated middleweight Yquem, a beautiful balance of sweetness to freshness; very sweet yet vivid in taste, a great purity of honey and lemon fruit, elegant, refined, slender, intense; restrained in style, moderate in complexity, luscious on a lesser scale with that succulent, smoothly polished, liqueur-like beauty of texture that is so often unique to this property, and with fine, honeyed length, but lacking real presence on the finish because of a lack of noble rot aromatic intensity. Great charm and ‘deliciousness’, but not a great or exciting Yquem, precisely because of an absence of real botrytis density to taste. Should be attractive from the moment it is bottled. 2014-30+ [M.Schuster, Bordeaux Mar/Apr 2011]

Served from an ex-chateau bottle. Consistent notes compared to the sample tasted blind at Southwold, the 2010 Chateau d’Yquem does not quite live up to the billing it showed out of barrel. Certainly it does not possess the concentration of the 2011, the elegance or the symmetry. However, there is fine minerality on the nose and great transparency. The palate is fresh and harmonious, with a fine bead of citrus fruit and a penetrating, spicy finish that offers white peach and honeysuckle notes, yet does not possess anything close to the peacock’s tail of the magnificent 2009. Still, this is a fine Yquem. Drink 2017-2040+.