Let me take a moment for a public service reminder: Good wines change over time; blind tastings like this one are snapshots, recording quick impressions at a particular moment in their evolution. They are less useful for making sweeping statements about producers and their wines in comparison with one another.

For example, our No. 1 bottle was the fragrant, lively 2010 Cuvée le Charnay Menetou-Salon from Jean-Max Roger. I would love to drink this wine tonight. But does that mean Jean-Max Roger is the best producer among the 20 we tasted, or that Menetou-Salon is the best of these appellations?

No, that would be putting too much stock in a single tasting, when years of drinking wines from other producers and appellations in the region suggest otherwise. What can we reasonably conclude? Jean-Max Roger is a very good producer, worth following, and his ’10 Menetou-Salon is fresh and vivacious.

By contrast, our No. 5 wine was the ’09 Didier Dagueneau Blanc Fumé de Pouilly, the basic cuvée from an estate widely considered to be one of the world’s greatest producers of sauvignon blanc. Since Mr. Dagueneau died in a plane crash in 2008, the wines have been made by his son Louis-Benjamin Dagueneau, who has carried on his father’s work very well.

This bottle had some of the hallmarks of Dagueneau greatness — richness, density, complexity and texture — but lacked the usual sense of precision and focus, which most likely reflects the ’09 vintage.

In the context of this tasting, we preferred the Roger and three other bottles to the Dagueneau. But I would not conclude that those other producers make better or more thought-provoking wines than Dagueneau; only that 2009 does not show Dagueneau at the heights of its brilliance. As you might guess, I’m not a fan of the ’09s in general, which I find to be big, fruity and lacking the subtlety and balance of the 2010s.

By the way, the Dagueneau was by far the most expensive bottle in the tasting at $90. (I’ve seen it priced from $65 to $100.) Since all the other bottles on our list were $17 to $24, it testifies to the respect Dagueneau commands and the prices admirers are willing to pay.