Ratings & Tasting Notes:

97 points — Burghound (Allen Meadows, June 2021)
Discreet oak sits behind an exuberantly spicy, markedly exotic nose of passion fruit, dried peach, apricot, fennel, jasmine tea and a hint of clove. The flavours are richly broad-shouldered and coated in dry extract, giving a thick, textured, almost chewy character to a lavish finish that is at once powerful and impeccably balanced, still youthfully austere, and very long. Meadows judges it less concentrated than the most concentrated of the domaine’s recent Montrachets, but singles out the length as dazzling and the upside potential as considerable.

94 points — Jasper Morris (Inside Burgundy, November 2020)
Morris notes that 2018 produced the largest crop here in many years — he estimates around 45 hl/ha and compares it in size to 1982. Pale, clear yellow; a faint toasty, biscuity note attached to a touch of beneficial reduction, which he calls a departure from the DRC Montrachet of preceding vintages. Power arrives on the palate, with liquorice and a slightly warm edge that he expects will need time to settle, closing on pear and a lightly lemon-scented acidity. It gains balance with air in the glass.

Cult Wines International Notes:

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is the most closely watched address in Burgundy, farming its Vosne-Romanée monopoles and a short list of grand crus under long-established organic and biodynamic practice. Its presence in Montrachet is a relatively modern chapter: the holding was assembled in three separate purchases, in 1963, 1965 and 1980, totalling roughly two-thirds of a hectare. Production is correspondingly small — commonly cited at around 3,000 bottles in a full year. Montrachet is the domaine’s white flagship and, for most of its history, the only white it offered commercially, which goes a long way toward explaining why it remains among the most fiercely contested dry white wines in the world.

2018 was Burgundy’s hot and generous vintage — a wet spring followed by a long, dry, sunny summer that delivered one of the largest crops in decades alongside unusually high ripeness. The wine that resulted departs from the pattern of the vintages immediately preceding it: exuberantly spicy and exotic, with passion fruit, dried peach, apricot, fennel and jasmine tea, and an abundance of dry extract lending the palate a thick, almost chewy texture. It is powerful without losing its balance, and the finish is remarkably long. Critics tasting it young found it less concentrated than the very finest recent vintages here, but flagged real upside with cellar time. This is a bottle to leave alone for a good while yet.

Bottle Size:

750 mL

Storage History:

Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.

Condition:

Outstanding condition.

Please note: The condition of the bottle you will receive is accurately reflected by the one shown in the images.

The individual bottle number has been deliberately masked in our photographs. Every DRC bottle carries a unique serial number, and published images of that number are routinely harvested by fraudsters — both to produce convincing counterfeits and to advertise wine which a fraudulent seller doesn’t possess. Masking this number also protects its eventual owner from similar fraud. The number is fully intact on the label and unobscured on the bottle itself. If requested, unmasked photos can be provided to the buyer after purchase and prior to shipping.