Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Grands Echezeaux Grand Cru 2019

The 2019 Grands Echézeaux Grand Cru is absolutely stunning. It is also the first wine in this tasting that feels less marked by the vintage, where there is a good deal of freshness to play off all the natural richness of the vintage. There is plenty of power and volume, and yet all the elements are so well-balanced. Blood orange, menthol, coffee and layers of red/purplish-toned fruit all meld together seamlessly. In richer years the Grands Echézeaux is often one of my favorite wines in the range, as is the case once again with the 2019. Of course, all of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti wines are frightfully expensive today, but if there is one hidden gem in the range in 2019, it is without question the Grands Echézeaux. It’s the wine I would personally go after most given its quality, personality and relatively – and I do mean relatively – modest price next to the other wines here.

The 2019 Grands Échézeaux Grand Cru is more reserved than the Échézeaux, even if it's far from forbidding. Mingling aromas of blackberries and raspberries with notions of exotic spices, orange rind, smoked duck and forest floor, it's full-bodied, rich and concentrated, with broad structural shoulders supplied by ripe, powdery tannins. Layered and muscular, it's remarkably seamless and integrated at this early stage, concluding with a long, sapid finish.