2019 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Romanee-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru, Marey-Monge

The 2019 Romanée St. Vivant Grand Cru picks up where the Grands Echézeaux leaves off. What a wine! Complete and beautifully resonant, the Romanée St. Vivant offers up copious dark fruit intermingled with dried herbs, lavender, graphite and coffee. It’s a rich, dramatic Romanée St. Vivant that will reward decades of cellaring. In most years, Romanée St. Vivant is a wine of sensuality, but in 2019 it is quite brooding and potent in bearing. Magnificent.

The 2019 Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru was picked on 20 and 21 of September at 18hL/ha and contains slightly less whole bunch than the Domaine's other cuvées this year. It has a whip-cracking bouquet, one that just stops you in your tracks. Red cherries, freshly picked raspberries, wilted rose petal and very light loamy scents soar from the glass. No wonder this is poured after the Richebourg. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, stunningly vibrant red berry fruit, hints of tobacco and graphite that percolate through with time in the glass. It fans out gloriously towards the finish. Awesome length. What distinguishes this from the Richebourg is the tension throughout from start to finish. Heavenly. 1,351 cases produced. Tasted at Corney & Barrow’s annual in bottle tasting in London.

Aromas of rose petals, raspberries, cherries and plums mingle with hints of cinnamon, cloves and blood orange in an striking bouquet, introducing the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti's 2019 Romanée-St-Vivant Grand Cru. Full-bodied, satiny and multidimensional, it's deep, concentrated and sensual, with velvety tannins and an ample core of succulent, pungently perfumed fruit. Long and perfumed, it confirms this site's ascendancy in the portfolio.

45-year-old vines were picked on 20 and 21 September and yielded just 18 hl/ha. 1,351 cases made. Intensely perfumed. Dramatic! More red-cherry flavours, plus Vosne savour. Such energy! This one hogs the stage – demands attention. Particularly fine, sandy tannins. Really quite delicate on the end. Quite flashy for a DRC wine. Firm and yet very fine-boned. (JR)