Winemaker Notes
The nose opens with intense aromas of redcurrant, wild strawberry, pomegranate and rose petal. The palate is sensual and seductive, with fleshy tannins. It is a well-balanced, pure, structured wine with a persistent finish that will give you great enjoyment.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2018 Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru is matured in 20% new oak. It has a very intense bouquet of bright red currant, wild strawberry, pomegranate and rose petal aromas that feels sensual and seductive. The medium-bodied palate offers succulent, fleshy, quite grippy tannins that lend this Romanée-Saint-Vivant volume and mass. It is very well balanced and pure, and feels structured, almost Richebourg-like, toward the persistent finish. This is a very serious Grand Cru that will offer 20 to 30 years of drinking pleasure.
Barrel Sample: 95-97 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The most backward cuvée in the cellar when I visited was the 2018 Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru, a rich and muscular wine that unwinds to reveal notions of cherries, cassis and berries mingled with nuances of exotic spice and new oak. On the palate, it's full-bodied, fleshy and structured, with refined but youthfully assertive tannins. A wine of considerable presence, this will need its remaining élevage to round out, but it's very promising.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Jasper Morris
Bright purple, vigorous, thrilling pure fruit bouquet. No sign of the vintage at first though becomes a little sweatier afterwards. Soft red sun-baked fruit. Firm on the palate, though at least partly through intensity. Finishes very much red rather than black. At one point I found this a fraction undernourished before the wine started to open out and gain more detail.
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.