2021 Romanée-Conti Grand Cru

Bertrand de Villaine greets me at the hallowed gates to show me through the Domaine’s 2021s. Such is the insatiable demand for visits from around the world that they have to limit the numbers permitted to taste from cask, not least for the two practical reasons of 1) the time it takes and 2) that it is risky opening and closing bungs on barrels, exposing them to oxygen so frequently. Naturally, status precludes no one from the caprice of Mother Nature, and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s vines were exposed to the three days of frost from 6 to 8 April, plus the blanket of snow on 7 April. Despite distributing candles across their vineyard, that put pay to half the crop in Vosne-Romanée, 80% in Corton and 90% in their whites, Montrachet and now Corton-Charlemagne. There was little relief for the beleaguered vineyard team that, to quote the Domaine, “had difficulty keeping the pace imposed by the unusual weather conditions.” Mildew and particularly oïdium were aggressive from May, botrytis from July. Weather conditions became more clement, and the harvest took place from 23 September to 2 October, necessitating rigorous sorting. Yields are the lowest ever, averaging just 15hl/ha in Vosne-Romanée, higher in Romanée-Conti and Grands Echézeaux at 22-23hl/ha. That’s a bumper crop if you compare them to Corton and Corton-Charlemagne at a measly 4.5hl/ha, plus there are just four barrels of around 1,200 bottles of Montrachet.

As the 2021s will not be released for some months, I will refrain from analysing these barrel samples. But I like to include them to compare with their peers and to trace their development between now and after bottling. One thing that I will mention, that I opined to Bertrand de Villaine, is that I intuitively feel that this is La Tâche’s year rather than Romanée-Conti, for the banal reason that the former’s expansive six hectares of vineyard permit them to winnow out anything that doesn’t quite pass muster. In contrast, Romanée-Conti’s 1.8-hectares deny their team that same flexibility, arguably making it a more accurate translation of a growing season. It will be fascinating to compare them once they are in bottle.