No Alarm: 2023 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

BY NEAL
MARTIN | FEBRUARY 11, 2026

A
profound wine transports the imbiber to another world where random apparitions
of fruit, herbs, spices, flowers and a myriad of other things materialise out
of thin air and prompt two questions:

Is this
what you smell? 

Is this
what you taste?

I must
look like I am in a stupor. I am not alone. Most people in the tasting room appear
to be in the kind of mass trance last seen at all-night raves circa 1989. 

<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1770661115166-drc+2023+bottles_Vinous.JPG">I am
readying myself for the Grands Echézeaux when the silence is shattered by the
fire alarm. The timing could have been better.

The
sound of the alarm whips me back to North Street Junior School. Fire drills are
highlight of the day—an unexpected break from the ennui of long division.
Mayhem ensues. Teacher yells, “Quieten down! Quieten down!” and the classroom
erupts in mock pandemonium, exercise books falling from desks, chairs scraping
on the parquet floor, the odd shout of “Fire!” Instructions to file out in an orderly
fashion elicit a rugby scrum, every boy and girl for themselves. If this were
the Titanic, everyone would have drowned. The entire school gathers in the
playground and the unruly mob is requested to line up alphabetically, which is harder
than herding cats. We keep swapping positions to force a recount. Teachers give
up. Eventually we file back into school, but by then our fragile concentration
is broken. Long division will have to wait another day. &nbsp;

Today’s
situation is different. Perhaps it was Thatcher’s cutbacks, but if memory
recalls, North Street Junior School’s curriculum did not include wine
appreciation, nor the geology of the Côte d’Or. No, we had to learn long
division, and I have never used that in my wine career, not once. No
glasses of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti were lined up on my desk awaiting my
assessment as they are today.

The
alarm continues. If this is a real fire, would I extinguish it with my
glasses of wine? Logically, I would start at the Cuvée Duvault-Blochet and work
my way up to Romanée-Conti in ascending order of indignation and tears.

<a target="_blank">Perhaps it</a>
has nothing to do with a fire? I consider alternatives. 

One:
Somebody has spat out the Romanée-Conti. This is an act forbidden under
Burgundy Wine Law, and the penalties are severe. 

Two: The
alarm has been set off by a jealous Burgundy lover. Once the room is evacuated,
he or she will sneak in through the window and guzzle all the wine. 

Three: It
is a brazen attempt by a rival Vosne-Romanée producer to interrupt the tasting.


Four:
Bertrand de Villaine and Perrine Fenal wanted to end the tasting early so they
can pop over to M&amp;M World in Leicester Square.

Despite
the fire alarm, nobody moves a muscle. Most continue to tilt glasses to see how
the Pinot Noir glints, or swirl to unlock aromas. We have lost our sense of
hearing. What fire alarm? I can’t hear it, can you?

As
usual, the annual Domaine de la Romanée-Conti tasting is held at Corney &amp;
Barrow, the domaine’s UK agent. For all intents and purposes, the tasting is
much like a classroom examination. The only difference is that we do not have
to hand in our tastings notes for marking, though it would be quite fun if we
did. &nbsp;Place a sommelier in detention for
missing the acute accent in Echézeaux where they must chalk “It’s Domaine de la
Romanée-Conti not DRC” or “Monopole is not a board game” 100 times on the
blackboard. With his broad shoulders, I would imagine Bertrand de Villaine to
be a sports teacher with a penchant for rugby on bitterly cold winter days. Perrine
Fenal would be our kindly French teacher. Today’s lesson is neither P.E. nor
French. 

It is
the 2023 vintage at the most famous wine producer in the world.

<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1770661167322-drc+2023+bertrand+perrine_Vinous.JPG">Bertrand
de Villaine and Perrine Fenal guide attendees through the 2023 vintage.

Both de Villaine&nbsp;and Fenal colour in details of the growing season. Notably, there was a very
successful flowering between May 20 and June 10 that saw a good fruit-set and a
potentially large crop. This necessitated crop thinning, overseen by Vineyard Manager
Sylvain Pellegrinelli, who commenced his tenure in March 2023. “Pellegrinelli has a strong interest in geology,” Fenal remarked. “He relates to biodynamics
and abides by the system as long as it serves the purpose in order to be able
to have the best results.” In a way, Fenal was saying that whilst they follow
biodynamics in all their vineyards, the domaine is not hidebound by them. 

Echézeaux
suffered minor damage after hail on June 20. July and August were cooler
than the previous season, and given abnormally large bunches, véraison was slow.
Berries stubbornly refused to turn from green to purple, so naturally there
were concerns about achieving phenolic ripeness. Therefore, the vineyard team
undertook further thinning of bunches.

Two
heatwaves pivoted the season in a different direction, and sugar levels rapidly
increased. Burnt bunches were cut off and thankfully showed no signs of blocked
ripening, which de Villaine attributes to terroir. The domaine decided to wait and
began picking on September 5 in Grands Echézeaux. A&nbsp;watching Aubert de
Villaine commented that he had never seen such large bunches. Harvesting
reached full steam two days later using 50 pickers and 20 porters—more than
usual, to transfer fruit to the winery as efficiently as possible and
avoid the risk of spoilage. Picking dates have become more clustered in recent
years; in 2023, all the fruit was picked within ten days, stopping when
conditions became too hot. Fenal mentioned that with more uniformity in
ripeness across their vineyards, it is becoming harder to select which to
broach first.

Tasks
such as sorting and transferring into vat must be done efficiently, keeping
pace with the incoming fruit, so Cellar Master Alexandre Bernier had to stay on
top of things. He had to keep a watch on the higher-than-average sugar levels
that risked stuck fermentations, de Villaine mentioning that in warmer
conditions, yeasts can be less efficient in converting or might compete with
other ambient yeasts. According to Fenal, only La Tâche was slow to ferment its
sugars. In 2023, the domaine used 100% whole bunch across the range. The wines
were barrelled down between January and May 2025, and there was a single
racking during élevage. De Villaine compared 2023 with 2003 and noted that for
the first time (and surely not the last) all the cuvées exceed 14% in alcohol. 

<img alt="" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.vinous.com/uploads%2F1770661186461-drc+2023+corks_Vinous.JPG">There
is more terroir expression, freshness and definition in the 2023s compared to
the 2022s, with slightly brighter and more vivid fruit, though keep in mind
that the 2022s will ultimately lose their youthful exoticism. In that sense,
the 2023s are going to present more immediate drinking pleasure.

This
year, the Grands Echézeaux puts a tangible gap between itself and the
Echézeaux. There is also a qualitative difference between the
Romanée-Saint-Vivant and the Richebourg, the latter endowed with more
complexity and length. La Tâche and Romanée-Conti initially were closer, though
the latter pulled away with aeration, revealing hidden mineralité and
precision, effortless as always. 

Apart
from the fire alarm, the other point where the tasting went off-script was when
a Japanese woman took the microphone and explained how, at her famous high-end
London store, a customer had bought a bottle of 2010 Corton. Everyone in the
room, including myself, expected her to continue by saying how much he liked it.
Instead, she explained that he did not like the style, which left both de
Villaine and Fenal a bit lost for words. What can you say? I liked her honesty.
It was a reminder that no wine is infallible or will appeal to everyone’s
taste. There were good grounds for the customer’s point of view because, as I
opined at this tasting, those initial vintages of Corton after its debut in 2009 did not translate the DNA of the domaine.
As time passed, that has changed, and the 2023 is “part of the family,” albeit adhering
to Côte de Beaune instead of Côte de Nuits. It is important to keep that
distinction. Furthermore, one should not genuflect in front of any icon. In
that respect, frankly, I do not find the 2023 Corton-Charlemagne really delivers
aromatically and is rather neutral, unlike the wonderful 2022. This circles
back to needing several vintages under your belt to really understand a new
vineyard and learn how it reacts in varied growing conditions. 

Final
Thoughts

This
was my 28th tasting of the newly bottled vintage of Domaine de la
Romanée-Conti, an exercise that never fails to fascinate. If anything, my
interest only grows, adding to the library of previous vintages, inviting
comparison. The 2023s are cut from a completely different cloth than the 2022s
and will appeal to those seeking more classical Burgundy. These wines might be
expensive, but that does not mean they are infallible, something telegraphed by
my scores. However, irrespective of quality, there is something innately magical
about this “family” of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. 

That
fire alarm took us out of our collective dreamlike state and back into the real
world. Had we been instructed to evacuate the room in the middle of the tasting,
then I am certain we would have filed out in orderly fashion…at least once we
had finished downing our remaining glasses.© 2026, 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.<hr> You Might Also Enjoy<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/burgundy-2024-one-battle-after-another-jan-2026">Burgundy 2024: One Battle After Another</a>, Neal Martin, January 2026<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/future-memories-drc-2022-in-bottle-feb-2025">Future Memories: DRC 2022 In Bottle</a>, Neal Martin, February 2025<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/2022-domaine-de-la-romanee-conti-the-lightness-of-being-mar-2025">2022 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti: The Lightness of Being</a>, Antonio Galloni, March 2025<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/nature-rules-nature-s-rules-drc-2021-in-bottle-feb-2024">Nature Rules/Nature’s Rules: DRC 2021 In Bottle</a>, Neal Martin, February 2024<a target="_blank" href="https://vinous.com/articles/domaine-de-la-romanee-conti-a-survey-of-the-2021s-mar-2024">Domaine de la Romanée Conti: A Survey of the 2021s</a>, Antonio Galloni, March 2024

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