The ‘19 Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru (Marey-Monge).

Drinking window

Tasting note

This is a study in lift rather than weight. A vivid bouquet of raspberries and red cherries climbs from the glass woven with rose petals, peony, cinnamon and bergamot, an aromatic register that reads more floral and spiced than dark. On the palate the wine is medium-bodied, scoring 5 for body, so it stays satiny and weightless rather than broad, gliding across the tongue instead of filling it. The tannins are fine-boned and supple at 5, present only as a faint chalky frame that shapes the finish without ever clamping down. What drives the wine is its acidity, a bright 8 that keeps the red fruit vivid and the whole structure taut and lifted from attack to close. The finish is long, penetrating and pure, the silk-fine tannins and high acid carrying that raspberry and rose-petal signature well past the swallow. It is a wine of tension and transparency, where freshness, not power, is the organizing principle.

The 2019 vintage

2019 was among the warmest years of the past century in Burgundy, and the Cote de Nuits saw a hot, dry summer punctuated by two short blasts of extreme heat at the end of June and the end of July. Crucially, there was enough water to keep the vines from severe drought stress, so the heat concentrated the fruit without shutting it down. In the week before the September equinox a north wind passed through the Cote de Nuits and concentrated the grapes further. The result was a set of reds with intense fruit and firm structure that, unusually for a hot year, held on to their acidity rather than seeing it plummet.

About Domaine de La Romanée-Conti

Domaine de la Romanee-Conti farms the Marey-Monge parcel that makes up the majority of Romanee-Saint-Vivant, vines the estate leased from 1966 and purchased in 1986. The domaine has farmed biodynamically across its holdings since 2007, and in 2019 vinified this cuvee with roughly 80% whole clusters, slightly less than its other grands crus. That whole-bunch, stem-inclusive approach feeds the wine's floral and spiced lift and its fine-grained structure.

From the cellar: pair with

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• Aging Burgundy Pinot

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• When to drink wine

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