White Wine between $50 and $75

Wonderful, evocative orange marmalade and ginger flavors play around this rich wine. Its botrytis dryness doesn't detract from the intense sweetness, ripe apricots, spice and deliciously refreshing acidity. The richness is in the texture, but the ripeness is in the open, generous fruit.

This sampler includes one bottle each of the following wines:

2011 Cave de Lugny - Mâcon-Villages La Côte Blanche ($9.99 on sale; reg., $11.99)

2011 Cave de Lugny - Mâcon-Lugny Les Charmes ($13.99 on sale; reg., $16.99)

2011 Manciat-Poncet - Mâcon-Charnay Les Chênes ($13.99 on sale; reg., $15.99)

2011 Remoissenet - Mâcon-Villages ($12.99 on sale; reg., $14.99)

The 2010 Condrieu is even more perfumed and intense, boasting stunning minerality in addition to copious notes of honeysuckle, lychee nut and mango. Drink this luscious, medium to full-bodied white over the next 3-5 years. One of the truly profound wines of the appellation is Guigal's Condrieu La Doriane, which comes from estate vineyards located in some of Condrieu's finest terroirs, such as Cote Chatillon, Volnats, Colombier and the Coteaux du Chery. Aged in 100% new oak (although it never shows) and put through malolactic fermentation, these are great Condrieus that age well (I mistakenly pulled a 2001 Condrieu La Doriane out of my cellar thinking it was the 2009, and I was shocked to discover how fresh and lively it was at age ten.). Nevertheless, I still have a strong predilection for drinking them in their exuberant youth, during their first 3-4 years of life.

Aromas of Meyer lemon, toasted nuts and fig are supported by the underlying sweetness of honeysuckle. The entry is honeyed with ripe citrus, light melon and well-integrated nuttiness and a touch of mineral. A rich, full midpalate with balanced acidity draws out into a long finish.

Not surprisingly, here the nose is completely different with a very ripe nose of resin, yellow orchard fruit and earth nuances that is trimmed in a light touch of wood before exposing rich, delicious, powerful and mouth coating flavors that offer impressive depth and length for a villages level wine. This is well worth a look.

Tasting note: There is enough reduction present to all but completely mask what appears to be earthy yellow fruit underneath the funk. There is good intensity to the powerful large-scaled flavors that possess a distinct malic acid tang on the energetic finish. This seems to have the richness and mid-palate concentration to eventually stand up to the firm acid spine but for the moment, the acidity has the upper hand.