Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

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The stone wayside cross protects the Pinot noir vines in the Romanée-Conti monopoly . She gave the winery her name.

The Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) is considered the most famous winery in Burgundy and one of the best wineries in the world. It is located in the French wine-growing community of Vosne-Romanée in the Côte-d'Or wine-growing region north of Nuits-Saint-Georges .

The name derives from the Grand Cru -Location Romanée-Conti ago posing as a monopoly position in the exclusive possession of the DRC is. It lies down the slope of the neighboring monopoly La Romanée and also borders the Grand Cru sites Richebourg and Romanée-Saint-Vivant , whose property is shared by several wineries. The same applies to the Grand Cru La Tâche .

The winery also owns shares in other Grand Crus in Vosne-Romanée: Échezeaux , Grand Échezeaux , Romanée-Saint-Vivant , and Richebourg . In addition, a small amount of white Burgundy ( Chardonnay ) is made from the Grand Cru Le Montrachet .

In the past, Les Gaudichots wine was made from a vineyard that was later reclassified as part of the La Tâche site. Three small remaining parcels of Les Gaudichots are currently classified as Premier Cru locations, a fourth parcel as Village locations.

History and owner

Precious wine matures in the vaulted cellar under the domaine.

In the middle of the 13th century, Benedictine monks planted the first vineyards and named them "Le Cloux des Cinq Journaux". Until 1584 the winery was owned by the Roman Catholic Church. After the sale it changed hands several times. In 1760 the estate passed to the Prince of Conti . It was named "Romanée-Conti" in 1794 after it was expropriated during the French Revolution.

At the end of the 19th century, the de Villaine family inherited the winery. In 1942, half of it was sold to the Leroy family, who were friends. Since then, the two families have shared the property. The winemaker Lalou Bize-Leroy also worked for the domaine between 1974 and 1991 . After her departure, she founded the Domaine Leroy winery, which has now also become famous .

Aubert de Villaine has been at the helm of the winery since 1974. In June 2009, the 70-year-old Aubert presented his nephew Bertrand de Villaine as his future successor. Bertrand de Villaine was previously in charge of several optician shops in Dijon and Chalon-sur-Saône .

Locations

Stone tablet in the vineyard wall by Romanée Conti

The property is spread over a total of 25.53 hectares .

The domain includes the best Grand Cru sites in the municipality of Vosne-Romanée :

The domaine has a share of 0.68 hectares in the famous Le Montrachet Grand Cru white vineyard . 0.13 ha of the Bâtard-Montrachet site is sold in barrels. After Prince Florent de Mérode's death in 2008, DRC acquired the following vineyards: 0.57 ha Corton - Le Clos de Roi, 1.19 ha Corton - Les Bressandes and 0.51 ha Corton - Les Renardes.

There is only one wine that is not declared a Grand Cru, although it is hardly known even to wine connoisseurs: the Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru Cuvée Duvault-Blochet. So far, it has only been produced in the 1999, 2002 and 2004 vintages and is made from the red grapes of young vines that come from the estate's Grand Cru locations. Only the Bonneau du Martray winery is more consistent from this point of view and works exclusively with grapes from Grand Cru sites.

The Grand Cru location La Romanée, on the other hand, does not belong to the domain, but belongs as a monopoly to the Comte Liger-Belair family, who live in the Chateau de Vosne-Romanée, for which the young Louis-Michel Liger-Belair is currently working very successfully.

Winemaking

Preselection of the grapes before further processing

Every year around 7,500 cases of wine are produced at the domaine. The red wine is made from a single variety of Pinot noir . For a bottle of DRC wine, the grapes from around three vines are required.

The quality of the DRC wines comes from the old age of the vines, very high planting density with 10,000 vines / ha, rigorous green harvest in summer, selection and strict control of the grapes. The yield of the estate is on average only 25 hectoliters per hectare, far below the statutory 35 hectoliters per hectare. All vineyard areas are cultivated according to biodynamic principles.

The fermentation takes place in open old wooden vats (cuves). The Romanee-Conti is fermented exclusively in Cuve No. 17 , a vat from 1862, as attempts with stainless steel tanks had not resulted in any qualitative improvements. Since 1975, every vintage has been matured exclusively in new 228-liter barrels (pièces) made from fine-pored Tronçais oak. The Domaine procures the barrel wood itself from the forests of Tronçais and has the barrels made in the cooperage according to special specifications. The wines are bottled unfiltered. The best vintages require decades of storage due to their structural density and compactness.

As limited collector's and investment items, the Domaine’s wines are among the most sought-after and most expensive in the world. The red wine Romanée-Conti and the white wine Montrachet are the most popular . All of the Domaine’s wines are sold in boxes with 6 or 12 bottles, with the wines Romanee-Conti and Montrachet being allocated in particular . There are also counterfeits in circulation.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Martin Wurzer-Berger: The measure of all things. In: Fine Das Weinmagazin. 1/2009, Wiesbaden, Helsinki, pp. 19-22.
  2. ↑ a b c d Remington Norman: Côte d'Or. The big wineries in the heart of Burgundy. Hallwag Verlag, Bern 1996, pp. 90-93.
  3. ↑ La revue du vin de France. September / 2009, p. 14.
  4. ↑ News from Burgundy November 2008.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.clive-coates.com