Cellar Favorite: 1970 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Montrachet Grand CruBY ANTONIO GALLONI | DECEMBER 8, 2025I have been fortunate to taste many vintages of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s Montrachet Grand Cru over the years, but the 1970 was a vintage that had eluded me. I was delighted to taste it with Aubert and Pamela de Villaine on my most recent trip to Burgundy. It’s a special vintage, as it was one of the wines the De Villaines served at their wedding in 1971. The night before, the couple enjoyed wines from 1943. “I remembered that Pamela was born in 1943, so that was the wine we prepared for the wedding day,” Aubert de Villaine recounted. “But on the day of the civil ceremony, the day before, when the notary read all the pertinent information out loud, it turned out Pamela was born in 1942, so that is the wine we should have served at the wedding,” he added, alluding to one of the most famous vintages in the domaine’s history. “Maybe it was better that way, as we were so many on the wedding day,” Pamela added, suggesting quite a few bottles of the 1942s had been enjoyed in the following years and decades.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1765205474467-CF_Dec82025.jpg">“Nineteen seventy-one was an unusual vintage,” Aubert explained. “The malos were finished very quickly, so one barrel was bottled for our wedding. “It was a very generous gift from your father and Mr. Leroy,” Pamela added. “We were 150 people at the dinner, at the domaine, cooked by the vignerons and their wives. I remember that the earliest they could do it was the end of March, because that was when they were done with pruning,” she added. And so the wedding party drank a barrel of Montrachet, along with other wines. Domaine de la Romanée-Conti owns three parcels in the Le Montrachet lieu-dit in Chassagne-Montrachet. The total surface area of the domaine’s holdings here is just 0.68 hectares, making Montrachet the smallest and, in many ways, hardest to find wine in the collection of nine Grand Crus, something that is even more the case now that a significant portion of the vineyard is being replanted. By comparison, DRC’s holdings in the celebrated La Tâche and Romanée-Conti monopoles are just above 6 hectares and 1.80 hectares, respectively.The domaine’s largest parcel in Le Montrachet, purchased in 1963, sits on the border with Puligny-Montrachet and runs the entire slope of the vineyard, from top to bottom. Two smaller, contiguous parcels were purchased in 1965 and 1980 and are more centrally located, starting on the road that separates Le Montrachet and Bâtard-Montrachet and moving from east to west along the natural contour of the slope. The domaine’s oldest vines date back to 1936, with an average age of around 50 years.<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1765205510153-CF_Dec82025+2.jpg">In the glass, the 1970 is quite powerful. Strong savory and mineral notes dominate, along with the oily textural richness of a wine that is 55 years old. The 1970 is mature, but it is not fading at all. Rather, it is wine that has settled into its middle age quite comfortably. There is a sense of timelessness that is hard to describe with words. “It was a year with quite a bit of botrytis that concentrated the sugars and added a dimension of body,” Aubert explained. “Yields were generous that year, too,” he added. This bottle was reconditioned, which surely helps. Even so, this is a very special bottle, both for what is in the glass and for the rich history it unlocks.&nbsp;95/Drink 2024-2030 © 2025, Vinous. No portion of this article may be copied, shared or redistributed without prior consent from Vinous. Doing so is not only a violation of our copyright but also threatens the survival of independent wine criticism.

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