Ratings & Tasting Notes:

96 points — Vinous (Neal Martin, February 2019)
Martin records the picking on 27 and 28 September at 27 hl/ha. He finds a heavenly, perfumed nose of blackberry, briar, wet limestone, incense and pressed iris flowers, with subtle graphite developing on aeration — the old-school pencil box, though never more than a fleeting suggestion. The palate is medium-bodied and quite rounded with supple tannin, the graphite tincture building through the second half. He admires the energy and balletic poise of the wine as it fans out toward the finish, exerting grip with the softest of touches while offering deceptive weight and depth, and calls it a wine of panache and sophistication.

95 points — Burghound (Allen Meadows, January 2019)
A more restrained and cooler nose, super-fresh and floral-inflected, with exceptionally spicy red and dark currant, violet, plum and tea. The mouthfeel is highly refined — almost lacy, yet concentrated — with first-rate complexity across a balanced, wonderfully persistent if youthfully austere finish. Meadows describes a crunchy effort he calls class in a glass, its emphasis on finesse standing in clear contrast to the power and punch of the Corton beside it. Textbook, built-to-age Romanée-St-Vivant.

95 points — Wine Advocate (William Kelley, January 2019)
Kelley calls it super, bursting from the glass with a kaleidoscopic bouquet of potpourri, red berries, cassis, peony and rose petal. The palate is full-bodied, ample and fine-boned, with tangy acids, superb concentration and an ample chassis of powdery structuring tannins, concluding long and fragrant. He describes it as a Romanée-St-Vivant that exemplifies the intensity without weight distinguishing the domaine’s best wines, and rates it the equal of the 2015.

Cult Wines International Notes:

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti farms its holdings from Vosne-Romanée under long-established biodynamic practice, at yields among the lowest in Burgundy. It is the largest owner of Romanée-St-Vivant, holding just over five of the climat’s nine hectares — the former Marey-Monge parcel, which the domaine farmed from 1966 and bought outright in 1988. The cru sits lowest on the slope of the great Vosne grand crus, and its wine is correspondingly the most perfumed and least muscular in the cellar: lighter-framed, floral, silken, and for many drinkers the most purely elegant thing the domaine makes.

2016 is Burgundy’s survivor vintage. A catastrophic late-April frost swept the Côte d’Or, followed by a cold, wet spring and heavy mildew pressure, before a hot, dry summer from late June turned the season around and delivered fruit of unusual purity. The domaine picked its Romanée-St-Vivant on 27 and 28 September at 27 hectolitres per hectare. The wine is restrained and cool at first, opening into blackberry, briar, wet limestone, incense and pressed iris alongside potpourri, red currant, cassis, violet, peony and tea, with a fleeting graphite note that builds with air. The palate is medium-bodied, almost lacy yet concentrated, its supple, powdery tannins exerting grip with the softest of touches through a balanced and wonderfully persistent finish. Critics describe poise and finesse rather than power, and agree it is built to age.

Bottle Size:

750 mL

Storage History:

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

Condition:

Please note: The bottle shown is the exact bottle being sold.

Outstanding condition.

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.