2017 Corton Grand Cru

The annual presentation of new releases from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in early March was the last event I attended before lockdown. Aubert and Bertrand de Villaine were in town to present the new vintage, 2017, with a small sit-down tasting hosted by long-time importer Wilson Daniels. Initially I thought I would publish this article as a bookend, when things returned to normal. Back then, I could have never imagined where we would be today. After reading Neal Martin’s article Complex, Not Complicated: 2017 DRC in Bottle chronicling the London edition of this tasting, I decided to shamelessly rip off his format. So, here you have my version…

Ringing the doorbell of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti always provokes a frisson of excitement. After 12 years visiting the domaine, I am accustomed to the fact that aesthetically and functionally, this cellar is like any other. It is when you commence tasting that you remember that this address creates some of the finest wines known to mankind. That does not imply infallibility, or that because of reverence and market value they are implicitly “the best.” Yet their wines always have something to say, adeptly articulating the growing season and their respective vineyards. They are often cerebral wines that deserve as much contemplation as you can afford. Bertrand de Villaine greeted me at the office overlooking the central place in Vosne. Stepping into the shoes of a figurehead Aubert cannot be easy, and I admire that Bertrand has never pretended to become what some might call the “new Aubert.” Bertrand has a very different personality and since we first met, he has just been himself, seemingly unaffected by the responsibility placed upon his broad shoulders.

So let us broach the 2017s. The domaine was not spared frost damage in 2016, so the Echézeaux and Grands Echézeaux will only be bottled in 1,500 magnums each, and at present, there are no plans to put them on the market. I mention this because vines react to the stress of the previous season. “We had a nice winter with cold temperatures,” Bertrand de Villaine informed me, “so the vineyard came back strong and powerful in Echézeaux and Grands Echézeaux. The yields were a little over 35hl/ha in both Echézeaux and Grands Echézeaux. Even if the crop was higher, the equilibrium in the vineyard was maintained. We cropped between 30hl/ha and 35hl/ha for most. However, there was no green harvest, since we had maintained vegetal material through careful pruning and de-leafing.”

As usual, I will not go into the minutiae of the growing season, since I keep that back for my annual in-bottle report every February. Suffice to say that in the domaine’s summary of the growing season, they cite early bud-burst and again, rapid and early flowering as key factors in the growing season. The rains at the end of August were perhaps a third factor since they nudged the ripening cycle towards phenolic maturity. The harvest commenced on September 4 in Corton, where de Villaine commented that re-grafting parcels through their sélection massale program has yielded much more promising fruit than they envisaged when their fermage commenced almost a decade ago. Picking resumed two days later in La Tâche and finished on September 15 with the last plots of Echézeaux. (The 2017 is the final harvest to be overseen by cellarmaster Bernard Noblet; his first was the 1985 vintage, when he took over from his father, André Noblet.) In 2017 they practiced a very gentle pigeage to avoid any overextraction. I also enquired about the use of stems in this vintage. “We used around 75% to 80% whole bunches in 2017, inspecting bunches carefully as they entered the winery and deciding how much to add,” Bertrand explained. “In 2018 we had to play more with the de-stemming because of mildew.” The wines are matured entirely in new oak as usual, though I spotted a few cigar-shaped 228-litre barrels housing their Echézeaux, as they improve lees contact during élevage. Bertrand de Villaine also remarked that they are considering bottling the 2017s a little earlier, though no decision had been made. Aubert did pop down to the cellar briefly and commented on how much he appreciates their “delicate aromas, elegance and transparency,” opining that they should age for 20 years or more.

Maintaining objectivity is paramount, particularly when it comes to such esteemed domaines as this. Having tasted every vintage since the 1995, my observation at this stage is that the 2017s are perhaps the most discreet that I have encountered. These are not wines that blow their own trumpets. They certainly demanded time in the glass to open; the La Tâche in particular was a cryptic crossword in a glass, a mystery novel with the final chapter torn out. It is a spectral beauty and yet unusually, this is the most enigmatic of the seven reds. I find the Romanée-Saint-Vivant the most bewitching, the Romanée-Conti the most assured. I suspect the wines were just beginning to close down as winter beckoned. Aubert de Villaine is perfectly correct with regard to their transparency and I suspect that they will gain density during the remainder of their élevage.