Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2020 & The New Burgundy

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | MARCH 28, 2023

This year’s presentation of the new releases from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti marked the beginning of a new chapter. It was the first time new Co-Managers Perrine Fenal and Bertrand de Villaine presented the wines following the retirement of Aubert de Villaine.

As I sat down to taste the wines, I thought it was probably a very good time for a transition because that is what Burgundy is all about right now. Transition. The first thing evident in the 2020 reds is their intense red/purplish color. I guess this is present-day Burgundy. These are not your parents’ wines; that much is clear. We are in another era, figuratively and literally.

Two thousand-twenty is the third in a cycle of historically warm and dry years spanning vintages 2018 through 2020. And yet it is also the most surprising of the three years. As much as the wines are dark, deep and richly flavored, they are also remarkably fresh and vibrant. Are the vines adapting to current conditions, or are vineyard managers and winemakers becoming more skilled at dealing with the New Burgundy, or are other factors at play? I suspect the answer to that question, if there indeed is an answer, is pretty complex.

As I wrote in my report on the 2020 Bordeaux from bottle, the 2020 vintage has a certain mystery to it because harvest took place during the COVID-19 lockdown, which meant, among other things, that there were no outside visitors in Burgundy who could report back on events as they unfolded. For their part, vineyard managers, winemakers and their crews worked under very calm conditions, save the constant threat of COVID. There was no early buzz, good or bad, about the 2020s. We were all worried about much more immediate and pressing matters as the pandemic unfolded.