2018 | Domaine de La Romanee Conti | Romanee St Vivant

Very fine, even perfumed fruit, fresh purple throughout. This is a noble, classy wine, the clay has done its work. I can detect the fractional tail end of an earlier reduction which adds some blackcurrant leaf but this will diffuse long before bottling. Nobly fresh finish, very compact and classy.

Reviews:

• Decanter: Romanée-St-Vivant went through malolactic later than the other DRC Grands Crus and was a little more backward and reductive when I tasted it from barrel. Fermented with 90% whole clusters and aged in new wood, it's paler than its stablemates, with refined red berry fruits, focused, mineral-edged acidity and a racy, chalky finish. Transparent winemaking from a site that often produces the domaine's most elegant wine.

• Burghound: Here the nose is brooding to the point of being almost mute and requires aggressive swirling to gradually reveal plum liqueur, purple fruit and a variety of subtle spice and floral wisps. There is terrific punch and detail to the middle weight flavors that aren't quite as concentrated or muscular as those of the Grands Echézeaux yet there is still impressive power on the wonderfully long finish. This is somewhat less refined than it usually is, and not quite as spicy either, though by contrast it is more tannic and a wine that also should develop slowly over the next 25 to 30 years. I found the 2018 to be almost atypical in the sense that it's much more powerful and imposing than usual and it doesn't have the refinement either though that may well come with time in bottle. Patience strongly advised.

Producer Information

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, or DRC as it is commonly known, is easily Burgundy's best-known and most collectible wine producer. Based in the Burgundy village of Vosne-Romanée, the domaine sells wines from eight different grand cru vineyards that span the length of the Côte d'Or. The most famous comes from the eponymous Romanée-Conti vineyard, and on average is the most expensive wine in the world. The domaine predominately produces Pinot Noir-based wines from 28 hectares (69 acres) of grand cru vineyard. Alongside Romanée-Conti are La Tâche, Romanée-Saint-Vivant and Richebourg in Vosne-Romanée; plus Échezeaux and Grands Échezeaux bottlings. Fruit from Corton-Bressandes, Corton Clos du Roi and Corton Renardes is combined in a single Corton Grand Cru red. There are three white (Chardonnay) wines made. Only one of these, the Montrachet is made widely avilable. A Bâtard-Montrachet and a Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits are not publically distributed. Of course, La Romanée-Conti is the domaine's most famous asset, and the amount of wine made from less than 2ha (5 acres) of land amounts to just 6000 bottles a year. The vineyard has a long history, dating back to the Abbey of Saint-Vivant in the 13th Century. It took on the Romanée name in 1631, and the Conti in 1760.Today, DRC is owned in part by the de Villaine family and in part by the Leroy family. Aubert de Villaine is the figurehead of the company now – although it was famously run by Lalou Bize-Leroy for a time, until a dispute saw her ousted from control.

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