The 2018 La Romanée Grand Cru is the most reserved cuvée in the range, unwinding in the glass with notes of cherries, raspberries, dark chocolate, plums and spices that's framed by a nicely integrated bouquet of creamy new oak. It's full-bodied, velvety and enveloping, with a deep and multidimensional core that saturates the palate and largely conceals the wine's powdery structuring tannins. Underpinned by a lively spine of acidity and concluding with a long and pungently perfumed finish, this is a very serious La Romanée built for the cellar.

The 2014 La Romanée Grand Cru has a crisp and precise nose with black cherries, bergamot and blackberry with fine delineation, then upon further investigation notes of orange sorbet that I observed out of barrel. The palate is medium-bodied with fine delineation, crisp acidity, a touch of salinity towards the finish. It has firmed up a little in bottle but there is outstanding intensity and superb length, retaining that "tantalizingly poised finish" (to quote myself). This is a brilliant La Romanée that might have the temerity to challenge the succeeding vintage. Tasted November 2016.

Tasted blind at the annual "Burgfest" tasting in Beaune. The 2012 La Romanée Grand Cru from Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair has a slightly reduced bouquet, a little meatiness coming through, touches of Provençal herbs and that palpable sense of mineralité. The palate is medium-bodied with lace-like but tensile tannin, exquisite poise, feminine and elegant, gradually building to a very composed finish with beautifully integrated oak. This feels so weightless in the mouth, yet there is wonderful intensity and intellect. Certainly, this is one of the wines of the vintage.

Liger-Belair's monopole 2006 La Romanee is impressively redolent of game, wood smoke, strawberry- raspberry preserves, and exotic spices. This coats and clings to the palate with sappy and invigorating fruit, spice, and smoke, as well as with dense, fine-grained tannins. Penetrating in the finish and restlessly alternating between intensely gamey, high-toned fruit distillate, jam, and spice wavelengths. This needs several years of restful evolution but there is little question that some sort of impressive animal is going to emerge over the coming decade or more. Louis-Michel Liger-Belair reported higher potential alcohol levels this year than in 2005, but also maintains that the nature of the ambient yeasts in 2006 accounted for a thankfully inefficient conversion, so that finished alcohols were not noticeably higher. Triage in his cellars, he maintains, was and will in future vintages remain "two to three percent," thanks to restriction of yields and meticulous vine management. Liger-Belair remains a proponent of gentle extraction but high levels of new wood. What I misleadingly announced in issue 170 as "a new negociant side of the business" is in fact an arrangement whereby Liger-Belair himself farms around 15 acres that had previously been tended by a grower who once enjoyed a share-cropping arrangement with Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair (during the long period when their wines were pledged to Bouchard). Half of the acreage in question yields Bourgogne and is genuinely sold as a negociant project, but the rest will be treated to the domaine's vine-papering, biodynamic regimen, including the horse plowing of whose revival they were among the earliest and most conspicuous proponents. Liger-Belair reminds me, however, that it will take time for the effect of this attention to be felt. Beginning with this vintage also, all of the Liger-Belair monopole La Romanee and all of their Vosne Reignots are estate-bottled, none being sold any longer to Bouchard. A Becky Wasserman Selection (various importers), Le Serbet; fax 011-333-80-24-29-70

Tasted at the La Romanée vertical at Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair. It has been over ten years since I tasted the debut 2002 La Romanée Grand Cru bottled by Comte Liger-Belair. It has certainly matured with style and in my opinion, has much more to offer than the 2003. It is precise on the nose with red cherries, candied orange peel and appealing floral aromas. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin and nicely judged acidity. I like the tension here, something that defines this vintage. After 13 years this marks a very refined debut that has the edge over the more "worked" Bouchard bottling. Tasted June 2015.