The 2019 Romanée-St-Vivant Grand Cru wafts from the glass with breathtaking aromas of raspberries and strawberries mingled with bergamot, Indian spices, peonies and rose petals. Full-bodied, vibrant and perfumed, it's finer boned than the more muscular Grands-Échézeaux, with a bright spine of acidity and beautifully refined tannins, concluding with a long, penetrating finish. Striking for its purity and elegance, my handwritten notes include the phrase "pure sensuality."
Discover the depth and richness of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti - Romanée-Saint Vivant - Grand Cru, crafted by the renowned Domaine de la Romanee Conti. This exquisite red wine showcases the best of its region, offering a symphony of flavors that include ripe berries, subtle spices, and hints of oak. Perfect for elevating any meal or occasion.
The 2017 Romanée-St-Vivant Grand Cru was also showing very well indeed, soaring from the glass with scents of cassis, violets, blood orange, cinnamon and espresso roast that are complemented by carnal nuances of smoked duck and musk. On the palate, it's full-bodied, multidimensional and enveloping, with terrific concentration, rich and powdery structuring tannins and a long, saline finish. This is a dramatic, head-turning Romanée-St-Vivant in the making, and it is showing even better in bottle than it did from barrel.
The 2016 Romanée-St-Vivant Grand Cru is super, bursting from the glass with a kaleidoscopic bouquet of potpourri, red berries, cassis, peony and rose petal. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, ample and fine-boned, with tangy acids, superb concentration and an ample chassis of powdery structuring tannins, concluding with a long, fragrant finish. This is a Romanée-St-Vivant that exemplifies the intensity without the weight that distinguishes the Domaine's best wines, and it equals the fabulous 2015 rendition.
The Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2015 Romanée-St-Vivant Grand Cru was showing superbly from bottle, bursting from the glass with a dramatic and expressive bouquet of rose petal, violet, raspberry and spicy red cherry that has already digested its framing of new oak. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, expansive and supple, its frame of fine-grained tannins cloaked in a deep core of vibrant fruit and only asserting themselves on the long, penetrating finish. This is a superb Romanée-St-Vivant that nips on the heels of the fabulous Richebourg this year. Cropped at 26 hectoliters per hectare and harvested September 9, 10 and 11.
Discover the depth and richness of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti - Romanée-Saint Vivant - Grand Cru, crafted by the renowned Domaine de la Romanee Conti. This exquisite red wine showcases the best of its region, offering a symphony of flavors that include ripe berries, subtle spices, and hints of oak. Perfect for elevating any meal or occasion.
Discover the depth and richness of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti - Romanée-Saint Vivant - Grand Cru, crafted by the renowned Domaine de la Romanee Conti. This exquisite red wine showcases the best of its region, offering a symphony of flavors that include ripe berries, subtle spices, and hints of oak. Perfect for elevating any meal or occasion.
Discover the depth and richness of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti - Romanée-Saint Vivant - Grand Cru, crafted by the renowned Domaine de la Romanee Conti. This exquisite red wine showcases the best of its region, offering a symphony of flavors that include ripe berries, subtle spices, and hints of oak. Perfect for elevating any meal or occasion.
Discover the depth and richness of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti - Romanée-Saint Vivant - Grand Cru, crafted by the renowned Domaine de la Romanee Conti. This exquisite red wine showcases the best of its region, offering a symphony of flavors that include ripe berries, subtle spices, and hints of oak. Perfect for elevating any meal or occasion.
The Domaine de La Romanee-Conti's 2006 Romanee-St.-Vivant charts its own mysterious path, dissimilar to that of their Grands-Echezeaux, as well as reflecting the strides in quality that have manifestly been achieved in recent years in this site, more than at any other at this domaine. Iris, buddleia, and musky narcissus-like floral perfume; ripe purple plum and blackberry; sassafras and licorice; along with smoked meat and a hoisin-like amalgam of spices and soy all waft alluringly from the glass. The tannins here are ultra-refined and there is a vintage-typical sense of levity, despite all of the dark intrigue of enveloping black fruits, forest floor, fungal, and carnal flavors that persist on the palate. Here is an uncanny alliance of the sensual and thought-provoking such as only great red Burgundy among the world's red wines can engender, and if this wine doesn't stimulate in you cravings and wonder at once, the fault is doubtless in yourself and not the glass. It seems to marry the brightness and finesse of the 2002 with the texturally richness of the (unexpectedly fine) 2000, two standouts in recent tasting of Romanee-St.-Vivant that I was privileged to attend. But there is much more depth here, and I expect that this wine's beauty will be worth pondering and savoring for at least two decades.
Just as this year’s Echezeaux challenges the quality of the Grands-Echezeaux, another surprise of the vintage is a spectacular showing for the 2005 Romanee-St.-Vivant. A startlingly dark, mouth-watering amalgam of purple plum paste, blackberry preserves, bitter chocolate, toasted walnut, soy, and raw beef intrigues the nose. On the palate, this cleaves to the dark side, with viscous, mouth-coating concentration of lightly-cooked black fruits, charred meat, mysterious forest floor complexity, and bitter-sweet florality, but simultaneously delivers a vibratory finish like that of the energetic Grands-Echezeaux. With its palpable extract, profound personality, and refined but abundant tannins, this is surely wine to set aside for at least a decade.
Perhaps the biggest Romanee-St.-Vivant produced at this domaine, the 2003 offers aromatics as well as flavors reminiscent of black fruits drenched in dark chocolate. Full-bodied, velvety-textured, as well as concentrated, it is immensely ripe, crammed with tannin, and vaunts an amazingly long finish.
The 2001 Romanee-St.-Vivant is ruby-colored and sports a nose of white pepper, spices, and black cherries. Light to medium-bodied, it is juicy, delicate, and reveals an oak-laced red fruit-flavored character. This complex, lace-like wine tightens in the finish, displaying notes of vanilla-laced new oak. Drink it over the next 6-7 years.
Discover the depth and richness of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti - Romanée-Saint Vivant - Grand Cru, crafted by the renowned Domaine de la Romanee Conti. This exquisite red wine showcases the best of its region, offering a symphony of flavors that include ripe berries, subtle spices, and hints of oak. Perfect for elevating any meal or occasion.
The 1999 Romanee-St-Vivant initially has its nose put out of joint by the precocious 1999 Echezeaux, but allowing the wine to unfold over 30 to 40 minutes, it shows its true breeding. Returning after ten minutes, the nose positively explodes from the glass with a sorbet-like purity – hints of wild strawberry, cassis and a little blueberry – a piercing intensity that is wondrous to behold. The palate is medium-bodied and does not have the volume of the 1999 Echezeaux, but there is superior clarity and focus, the tannins clearly fine and the finish shimmering with tension and femininity. This is just a beautiful wine that will only get better. Drink 2016-2030.
