The 2021 Romanée-Conti Grand Cru is the most integrated and complex—that's to say, hard to describe—wine in the range. Wafting from the glass with scents of sweet red berries, exotic spices, espresso roast, rose petals and violets, with only subtle hints of the coniferous bass-notes that mark out many of the other cuvées this year, it's full-bodied, pure and seamless, with an exquisitely suave, harmonious palate that effortless integrates vibrant acids, melting tannins and intense retronasal perfume. Concluding with a mouthwateringly saline finish, this is a wine that will delight, even enchant, Burgundy purists. The 2021 vintage has turned out brilliantly at the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, delivering wines of striking perfume and sensuality. Sadly, there just isn't very much of them to go around. The April frosts destroyed around half the crop in Vosne-Romanée and even more in the Côte de Beaune, indeed, fully 90% in Chardonnay. Harvest began on September 23, lasting until October 2, with Echézéaux and Corton-Charlemagne the last to be brought in. In the winery, Alex Bernier and his team retained all the bunches intact without destemming after sorting, and the wines matured in new barrels until bottling between December and May of 2023. The late harvest brought full physiological maturity without high alcoholic degrees, and the low yields express themselves in mid-palate unctuosity rather than any of the stigmata that can sometimes distinguish frost vintages, especially in Chardonnay. In style, they evoke the classics of yesteryear, but the evocation is surely a little deceptive, as these 2021s are already so suave and structurally polished that it's hard to resist them today—so if this is classicism, in other words, it's a decidedly contemporary classicism. Above all, these are wines that beg the question, how do we define a great vintage? Is it when wines impress or when they seduce? The Domaine de la Romanée-Contis would certainly pass the latter test.
-Robert Parker 98 Points
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