Winemaker Notes
La Tâche offers a vivid, intoxicating bouquet of violets, exotic spices, and black fruit. On the palate, it combines power with grace, presenting a velvety texture and a harmonious blend of ripe fruit and spicy notes. This wine is distinctive for its aromatic intensity and a richness that is both accessible and complex.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
A recent tasting of the 2021 La Tâche confirms it as among the top wines of the vintage. The colour is a deep, saturated ruby, and hints of violets, spice, and smoke deftly accent the ripe aromas of plum and mulberry fruit. The fruit balances the influence of the cask ageing, giving the wine a seamless integration. The texture is denser than most from this vintage, and the tannins are firm but not astringent - just lush, balanced elegance that places this wine above its peers. Picked 24 – 27 September; 6,947 bottles produced.
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Jasper Morris
An effortless deep crimson red. The bouquet has a sense of completeness, a poise ahead of the other wines. One needs to dig deep for the detail. Slowly, slowly, out it comes. Sometimes the rose petals lead with La Tâche but here it seems to be something of everything. Marvellous tension. On the palate, the saline aspect of whole bunches shows, along with a little blood orange. The red fruit then sweeps back to complete a gracious finish. This is usually the most tannic of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti wines, but here they are well covered by the fruit, and the flower, and the peppers and spices. I think we will be able to use the ethereal word. Now the roses are singing at the back of the palate.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The disparity between my score in barrel last year and from bottle this year is an illustration of the vagaries of barrel tasting, as the 2021 La Tâche Grand Cru has benefited immeasurably from a second winter of élevage. If the Saint-Vivant is the cousin of the Romanée-Conti, La Tâche this year is the big brother of the Richebourg, unwinding in the glass with aromas of dark berries and plums mingled with Asian spices, rose petals and coniferous forest and framed by a discreet patina of new oak. Full-bodied, layered and muscular, with a broad, textural attack and an ample core of fruit that conceals a serious chassis of tannin, it's long, resonant and intensely perfumed.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
This is the village for the most die-hard Burgundy fanatics. Vosne-Romanée has for many hundreds of years been the source of the most sought-after Pinot Noir in Burgundy. The village claims six Grands Crus—and some of the most famous at that—but in other villages where owners manage tiny parcels or a few rows of any one vineyard, monopolies dominate the Grands Crus of Vosne-Romanee.
Of these monopolies, Domaine Romanee-Conti (DRC) reigns supreme, claiming not only more total vineyard area than any other producer, but outright owning the entirety of two of the Grands Crus and a majority of two others. In its full possession are naturally Romanée-Conti, as well as La Tâche. DRC also owns most of Richebourg and Romanée-St-Vivant. The final two, La Grande Rue and La Romanée are completely owned by other other produers: François Lamarche and Comte Liger Belair, respectively.
While one could spend a lifetime on the puzzles of land ownership in Burgundy, the point is that Vosne-Romanee contains the most valuable pieces of vineyard real estate in the world. Pinot Noir from any of its vineyards—especially from within its 27ha of Grand Cru or 58 ha of Premier Cru land—is going to rank among the best.
The most outstanding wines from this village have everything: finesse and elegance coupled with the body and sturdiness for incredibly long aging ability. They are intensely floral and exotically spiced. Beautifully ripe, complex and ephemeral throughout, they are robust, yet fine-grained in texture. These wines will stay gorgeous for the long haul.