2007 | Domaine de La Romanee Conti | Richebourg (Magnum)

Detailed Description

Reserved after bottling and shipping, displaying strawberry and spice aromas and flavors. Though rich and fleshy for the vintage, this is a slimmed-down version, with present tannins making it a bit square on the back end, despite its long finish.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: The Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s 2007 Richebourg Grand Cru is still a few years away from the beginnings of maturity, and while it’s quite dramatic immediately after opening, offering up aromas of peonies, orange rind, red plums, raspberries and exotic spices, it becomes a little more aromatically reserved after a few hours. Medium to full-bodied, velvety and sumptuous, it’s ample and fine-boned, with filigree tannins, bright girdling acids and a long, saline finish.

• Burghound: A much more restrained, even taciturn nose that is actually quite ripe, spicy, fresh and diaphanous features primarily floral infused red berry, mineral and Asian spice aromas that merge gracefully into supple, round and tautly muscled broad-shouldered flavors that are almost as pure as those of the RSV, all wrapped in a detailed, focused and almost painfully intense finish brimming with minerality and striking length. This is a karate champion of a wine that isn’t especially big but the power and authority of the punch is hard to believe. I suspect that despite the fact that the ’07 Riche will not be a long distance runner by the standards that are typical here, this will be a late bloomer in terms of permitting a true assessment of its character and potential, meaning at least a decade.

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.