Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Grands Échézeaux 2021
P.O.A
In stock
750ml
Burgundy, France
Vintages
Description
Domaine de la Romanée Conti is co-owned by the de Villaine and Leroy/Roch families, the former successors to Jacques-Marie Duvault-Blochet who bought the vineyard of La Romanée Conti in 1869, the latter since acquiring the shares of other descendants of Duvault-Blochet in 1942. The Domaine is today run by Aubert de Villaine. Many people in Burgundy just refer to 'DRC' as the Domaine. The Domaine has 25 hectares of vineyards, all Grand Crus. As well as the 1.8-hectare monopole La Romanée Conti, the Domaine purchased its other monopole, La Tâche, in 1933, along with significant holdings in the grand crus of Richebourg, Romanée-St-Vivant, Grands Échezeaux, Échezeaux, and Le Montrachet at various points in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Domaine is the largest owner of each of the red wine grand crus.
The wines are made by Alexandre Bernier, in succession to Bernard Noblet. Whole clusters are used (no destemming) with a long vatting time to avoid excesses of heat. Yields are mind-numbingly low and the winemaking is traditional and perfectionist. These are not merely among the most sumptuous wines of Burgundy but certainly the most stylish. Ancestor Jacques-Marie Duvault-Blochet was an advocate of harvesting late in order to ensure optimum ripeness, a philosophy to which his descendants adhere today.
The small commune of Vosne-Romanée is the Côte de Nuits’ brightest star, producing the finest and most expensive Pinot Noir wines in the world, and boasting no fewer than eight Grand Cru vineyards. Its wines have an extraordinary intensity of fruit that manages to combine power and finesse more magically than in any other part of the Côte d’Or. The best examples balance extraordinary depth and richness with elegance and breeding. In the village of Flagey-Échezeaux, lying almost entirely within the Échezeaux Grand Cru itself lies a much smaller, more exclusive Grand Cru that is made up of the best one of the 12 vineyards that are used to make up the two Grands Crus. The other 11 are merged together to create the Échezeaux Grand Cru, but the single grandest vineyard of them all, which is about 18.6 acres, is designated with the Grands title. Yields are also generally lower, and in fact, usually, only about 3,000 cases per year of wine are produced. The number of producers is a fraction of that of Échezeaux itself.
This is the fastest maturing and least complex of all the Domaine's wines. It opens before the others, displaying a delightful clarity of expression: a seductive tenderness overlays a firm structure which allows it to evolve with elegance. Grands-Echézeaux's little brother it sometimes approaches its style in terms of muscularity and power.
Ratings
Score
98 points
Reviewer
Robert Parker
Review
The 2021 vintage has turned out brilliantly at the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, delivering wines of striking perfume and sensuality. Sadly, there just isn't very much of them to go around. The April frosts destroyed around half the crop in Vosne-Romanée and even more in the Côte de Beaune, indeed, fully 90% in Chardonnay. Harvest began on September 23, lasting until October 2, with Echézéaux and Corton-Charlemagne the last to be brought in. In the winery, Alex Bernier and his team retained all the bunches intact without destemming after sorting, and the wines matured in new barrels until bottling between December and May of 2023. The late harvest brought full physiological maturity without high alcoholic degrees, and the low yields express themselves in mid-palate unctuosity rather than any of the stigmata that can sometimes distinguish frost vintages, especially in Chardonnay. In style, they evoke the classics of yesteryear, but the evocation is surely a little deceptive, as these 2021s are already so suave and structurally polished that it's hard to resist them today—so if this is classicism, in other words, it's a decidedly contemporary classicism. Above all, these are wines that beg the question, how do we define a great vintage? Is it when wines impress or when they seduce? The Domaine de la Romanée-Contis would certainly pass the latter test.
Score
96 points
Reviewer
Decanter
Review
On release, the Grands Echézeaux shares the somewhat pale hue of the Echézeaux, yet it is aromatically richer, with more sweet pomegranate fruit on the initial attack. While still noticeable, the cask ageing is well-integrated, and the wine is more substantial and longer than its neighbour on the palate. The domaine protected parts of the vineyard with candles, which helped the yield and delivered a lusher result despite being picked a week earlier. This wine impresses even more now than it had out of barrel. Picked 23 September; 8,899 bottles produced.
