08/05/2024
We've got something special for you: the 2021 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Échezeaux Grand Cru 2021 has just arrived! This isn't your everyday bottle—it's a standout from one of Burgundy's most iconic vineyards.
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. -Wine Advocate
The 2021 Échézeaux Grand Cru has turned out beautifully in bottle, bursting with aromas of wild strawberries, spruce, baking spices and orange zest, followed by a full-bodied, fleshy and enveloping palate that's taken on appreciable mid-palate fat and dimension since I tasted it from barrel last year. Supple and sappy, its concentrated but weightless core of fruit largely conceals its fine but sinewy structuring tannins. -Robert Parker
Robert Parker - 95 Points
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