Ratings & Tasting Notes:

94 points — Decanter (January 2020)
Delicate, light and pale in colour, a pure, scented Échezeaux that shows how well the vines rebounded from the catastrophic 2016 harvest, when frost cut yields here to just 6 hl/ha. Spicy, savoury and appealingly perfumed, with red berries, fresh tobacco and a green malt note from 75% whole-cluster fermentation. Medium weight, with sappy tannins, redcurrant and raspberry fruit and a slightly bitter, almost medicinal undertone. Drinking window 2025 to 2032.

94 points — Wine Advocate (William Kelley, January 2020)
Kelley calls the 2017 flamboyant and especially good this year, bursting from the glass with an extravagant bouquet of wild berries, rose petals, cinnamon, smoked duck and Asian spices. The palate is full-bodied, supple and velvety, with an expansive attack and superb depth and amplitude, its fleshy core of fruit framed by fine, melting tannins. He finds it reminiscent of a modern-day version of the domaine’s 1985 Échezeaux, and notes it gained appreciably during its final months of élevage. The Échezeaux was where the estate’s harvest concluded that year.

94 points — Wine Spectator (Bruce Sanderson, March 2020)
Shy in aromas, hinting at cherry, currant and light floral notes. Sanderson nonetheless finds it silky and elegant, with fine intensity to the berry flavours, closing on elements of spice and mineral. Tasted non-blind.

93 points — Burghound (Allen Meadows, January 2020)
A completely different nose, much spicier and slightly toastier, offering red currant, pomegranate, sandalwood and an interesting hint of incense. Meadows finds excellent vibrancy to the attractively textured medium-weight flavours, which lack the minerality of the Corton but offer slightly better depth and precision across a lingering finish shaped by relatively fine-grained tannins. He expects it to be approachable a bit earlier than usual.

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. Échezeaux is the largest of the grand crus around Vosne, running to nearly thirty-eight hectares divided among dozens of proprietors, and the domaine is its largest single owner with roughly four and a half hectares spread across several lieux-dits. It is traditionally the most approachable wine in the cellar — supple, elegant, earlier to open than its stablemates — and the most accessible way into the domaine’s range without stepping outside the grand crus.

2017 restored Burgundy’s balance after the frost-ravaged 2016, when this vineyard yielded a barely credible 6 hectolitres per hectare. A warm spring, a healthy season and a return to normal volumes followed, and the Échezeaux was the parcel on which the domaine’s harvest concluded. Fermented with 75% whole clusters, the wine is pale, pure and scented: wild berries, rose petals, red currant, pomegranate, cherry, cinnamon, sandalwood, fresh tobacco, smoked duck and a hint of incense. The palate is supple and velvety with an expansive attack and real amplitude, its fleshy fruit framed by fine, melting tannins and a sappy, faintly bitter edge that keeps it savoury. One reviewer likened it to a modern-day version of the domaine’s 1985, and most expect it to be approachable rather earlier than this cru usually is.

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.