Romanée-Conti
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Romanée-Conti is an ''
Appellation d'origine contrôlée An appellation is a legally defined and protected geographical indication primarily used to identify where the grapes for a wine were grown, although other types of food often have appellations as well. Restrictions other than geographical boun ...
'' (AOC) and
Grand Cru Cru is a wine term used to indicate a high-quality vineyard or group of vineyards. It is a French word which is traditionally translated as "growth", as is the past participle of the verb "croître" (to grow); it literally means 'grown'. The ...
vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineyards ...
for
red wine Red wine is a type of wine made from dark-colored grape varieties. The color of the wine can range from intense violet, typical of young wines, through to brick red for mature wines and brown for older red wines. The juice from most purple grap ...
in the
Côte de Nuits The Côte de Nuits () is a French wine region located in the northern part of the Côte d'Or, the limestone ridge that is at the heart of the Burgundy wine region. It extends from Dijon to just south of Nuits-Saint-Georges, which gives its name to ...
subregion of
Burgundy Burgundy (; french: link=no, Bourgogne ) is a historical territory and former administrative region and province of east-central France. The province was once home to the Dukes of Burgundy from the early 11th until the late 15th century. The c ...
,
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, with
Pinot noir Pinot Noir () is a red-wine grape variety of the species ''Vitis vinifera''. The name may also refer to wines created predominantly from pinot noir grapes. The name is derived from the French language, French words for ''pine'' and ''black.' ...
as the primary
grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began perhaps 8,000 years ago, ...
variety. It is situated within the
commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...
of
Vosne-Romanée Vosne-Romanée () is a Communes of France, commune in the Côte-d'Or Departments of France, department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in eastern France. Population Wine It produces the region's most celebrated wines, all made entirely from the ...
and is a monopole of the winery Société Civile du
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, often abbreviated to DRC, is an estate in Burgundy, France that produces white and red wine. It is widely considered among the world's greatest wine producers, and DRC bottles are among the world's most expensive. ...
, which takes its name after this vineyard. Romanée-Conti borders on
La Romanée La Romanée is an ''Appellation d'origine contrôlée'' (AOC) and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, with Pinot noir as the main grape variety.K. MacNeil ''The Wine Bible'' pg 191-195 Workman Publishing ...
in the west, Richebourg in the north,
Romanée-Saint-Vivant Romanée-Saint-Vivant is an ''Appellation d'origine contrôlée'' (AOC) and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, with Pinot noir as the main grape variety. It is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée. ...
in the east and
La Grande Rue La Grande Rue is an ''Appellation d'origine contrôlée'' (AOC) and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, with Pinot Noir as the main grape variety. Wine style In general its character is feminine rathe ...
in the south.BIVB fiche
accessed on December 2, 2009.
The AOC was created in 1936. Wine from the vineyard is among the most sought after, and expensive, in the world. In October 2010, 77 bottles sold for a total of US$750,609 (about US$9,748 each) at auction.
Ferran Adrià Ferran Adrià i Acosta (; born 14 May 1962) is a Spanish chef. He was the head chef of the ''El Bulli'' restaurant in Roses on the Costa Brava and is considered one of the best chefs in the world. He has often collaborated with his brother, the ...
sold four bottles of Romanée-Conti 2004 for US$52,062 at a
Sotheby’s Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and ...
auction in New York in April 2013. On 13 October 2018, at Sotheby's of New York, a single bottle of Romanée-Conti 1945 from the cellar of Robert Drouhin sold for $558,000.


Characteristics

Romanée-Conti has been called "one of the greatest wines of the world and the most perfect as well as the most expensive of Burgundy ... with a forceful bouquet of violet mixed with a scent of cherry, a lively and profound ruby robe, a suaveness of exceptional finesse." The wine has been highly regarded for centuries. In 1780, the Archbishop of Paris declared it "velvet and satin in bottles." A 1794 catalogue entry for an auction of the vineyard during the Revolutionary era claimed that:
It is a vineyard famed for the excellent quality of its wine. Its situation in the vineyard territory of Vosne is the most advantageous for the perfect ripening of the grapes; higher in the west than in the east, it receives the first rays of the sun in all seasons, being thus imbued with the impetus of the greatet heat of the day.... We cannot disguise the fact that the wine of La Romanée is the most excellent of all those of the
Côte d'Or Côte is a British cafe chain founded by Richard Caring, Andy Bassadone, Chris Benians and Nick Fiddler in Wimbledon, London Wimbledon () is a district and town of Southwest London, England, southwest of the centre of London at Charing Cross ...
and even of all the vineyards of the French Republic: weather permitting, this wine always distinguishes itself from those of the other ''
terroir (, ; from ''terre'', "land") is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop's phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop's specific growth habitat. Collectively, these conte ...
s'' of predilection; its brilliant and velvety colour, its ardour, and its scent charm all the senses. Well kept, it always improves as it approaches its eighth or tenth year....
Wine critic
Clive Coates Clive Coates (21 October 1941 – 26 July 2022) was a British wine writer and Master of Wine, best known for his books about the wines of Burgundy.winepros.com.au. Biography Born in Wimbledon, London on 21 October 1941, Coates worked for T ...
praised the Romanée-Conti as: "the purest, most aristocratic and most intense example of Pinot noir you could possibly imagine. Not only nectar: a yardstick with which to judge all other Burgundies."
Roald Dahl Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short-story writer, poet, screenwriter, and wartime fighter ace of Norwegian descent. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. Dahl has be ...
once wrote of it, "Sense for me this perfume! Breathe this bouquet! Taste it! Drink it! But never try to describe it! Impossible to give an account of such a delicacy with words! To drink Romanée-Conti is equivalent to experiencing an orgasm at once in the mouth and in the nose."


History

The vineyard currently known as Romanée-Conti has had several other names over the centuries. It was initially called Cru de Clos, when it was owned by the Church, which, through the Abbey of Saint-Vivant, was once the owner of much of today's Grand Cru vineyards in Vosne-Romanée and leased out the Romanée-Conti vineyard on a long-term basis. In 1631, the vineyard passed by marriage to Philippe de Croonembourg, a Fleming who was lord of Saint-Genois. At that time, the name was changed to La Romanée, but it is not known to what the name refers.Wine Journal: Producer Profile - Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Confusingly, La Romanée is also the name of the vineyard's immediate uphill neighbour, but the two vineyards have always been under separate ownership, as far as is known. In the 1750s, the price of de Croonembourg's La Romanée wine was six to seven times as high as
Clos de Vougeot Clos de Vougeot, also known as Clos Vougeot, is a wall-enclosed vineyard, a ''clos'', in the Burgundy wine region, and an ''Appellation d'origine contrôlée'' (AOC) for red wine from this vineyard. It was named for the River Vouge, which is in ...
wine, and it was sold in feuillettes, half-size 114 litre barrels. In 1760, the vineyard was purchased from André de Croonembourg by Jean-François Joly, acting on behalf of Louis François I de Bourbon, the
Prince of Conti The title of Prince of Conti (French: ''prince de Conti'') was a French noble title, assumed by a cadet branch of the princely house of Bourbon-Condé. History The title derives its name from Conty, a small town in northern France, c. 35 km ...
. The vineyard was already held in high esteem at that time, and the prince paid a high price for it, 8,000
livres The (; ; abbreviation: ₶.) was one of numerous currencies used in medieval France, and a unit of account (i.e., a monetary unit used in accounting) used in Early Modern France. The 1262 monetary reform established the as 20 , or 80.88 gr ...
, apparently along with an additional sum under the table. This was almost ten times the price per area that had been paid for another highly regarded vineyard, Clos de Bèze, ten years earlier. Legend has it that the high price was the result of a bidding war between the Prince of Conti and
Madame Pompadour Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (, ; 29 December 1721 – 15 April 1764), commonly known as Madame de Pompadour, was a member of the French court. She was the official chief mistress of King Louis XV from 1745 to 1751, and rema ...
, but this has been shown to be a myth concocted by inhabitants of Vosne to add to the prestige and mystique of the vineyard. In 1764 the Prince of Conti proceeded to rename the vineyard to include his own name. Under the Prince of Conti's ownership, the wine was reserved for his own consumption rather than sold. In 1793, following the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, Romanée-Conti was seized from the last Prince of Conti by the state; and it was auctioned off in 1794, simultaneously with La Tâche. Romanée-Conti ended up being purchased by Nicolas Defer de la Nouerre, who then sold it to Julien Ouvrard, in 1819, for 78,000
francs The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centu ...
. In 1869, it was sold for the final time, when it was purchased by Jacques-Marie Duvault-Blochet, the ancestor of the de Villaines (including
Aubert de Villaine Aubert de Villaine is a social economist and co-owner of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti; he served as the Domaine's co-director from 1974 to 2021, stepping down to an advisory role in 2022. Some of the world's most expensive wines are produc ...
), one of two families who still own the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. In 1855, when Jules Lavalle published his classification of the Burgundy vineyards, Romanée-Conti was one of those he placed in the highest of five categories, ''tête de cuvée''. Romanée-Conti was one of the last Burgundy vineyards to be replanted with
grafted Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together. The upper part of the combined plant is called the scion () while the lower part is called the rootstock. The succ ...
vines after the
phylloxera epidemic The Great French Wine Blight was a severe blight of the mid-19th century that destroyed many of the vineyards in France and laid waste to the wine industry. It was caused by an aphid that originated in North America and was carried across the Atl ...
struck, despite declining harvests due to declining vigour of the vines. The last vintage of pre-phylloxeric wines was 1945, when the harvest was down to only one-tenth of today's output, or around 2.5 hectoliters per
hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...
, which meant that only 600 bottles were produced in this vintage. Despite this very small production and continuous consumption of the wine, thousands of bottles claimed to be Romanée-Conti 1945 have been traded over the decades, including large-format bottles that were never filled by the domaine in that vintage. It has therefore been concluded that Romanée-Conti 1945 is
forged Forging is a manufacturing process involving the shaping of metal using localized compressive forces. The blows are delivered with a hammer (often a power hammer) or a die. Forging is often classified according to the temperature at which it ...
to an unusually high extent. After the 1945 harvest, the old vines were uprooted and the vineyard left fallow. The vineyard was replanted in 1947, and no Romanée-Conti vintages were produced after the replantation until 1952.Burgundy Report Autumn 2005: The work of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Even before the replanting, Romanée-Conti vintages from the pre-World War II years were highly prized. The most expensive burgundy on the wine list of New York City's
21 Club The 21 Club, often simply 21, was a traditional American cuisine restaurant and former prohibition-era speakeasy, located at 21 West 52nd Street in New York City. Prior to its closure in 2020, the club had been active for 90 years, and it had h ...
in 1945 was a 1929 Romanée-Conti selling for US$18 at the time (when a full dinner at the Club would have cost as little as US$15, and when working-class men and women paid US$0.35 or US$0.50 for an inexpensive lunch at the
Automat An automat is a fast food restaurant where simple foods and drinks are served by vending machines. The world's first automat, Quisisana, opened in Berlin, Germany in 1895. By country Germany The first automat in the world was the Quisisana ...
). Since 1985, Domaine de la Romanée-Conti has practiced
organic farming Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on organic production and labelling of organic products and re ...
in the vineyard. Wine critic Hugh Johnson, writing in 2005, described how difficult it was to purchase bottles of Romanée-Conti from the vineyard:
Allocation is a form of commercial diplomacy used to leverage the value of something coveted to sell what is less coveted. No-one can buy a bottle of Romanée-Conti alone—that is, without buying other wines. First you must be on the mailing list, which soon spawns a waiting list to get your name on the mailing list. Then comes an email warning: the offer is tomorrow: drop everything and stand by for the postman.
In January 2010, the vineyard was the victim of an
extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...
attempt, when a note was left in the vineyard threatening destruction of the vineyard by poisoning unless a million Euros was paid. Two vines were killed with
herbicide Herbicides (, ), also commonly known as weedkillers, are substances used to control undesired plants, also known as weeds.EPA. February 201Pesticides Industry. Sales and Usage 2006 and 2007: Market Estimates. Summary in press releasMain page fo ...
as proof of serious intent. A
sting operation In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person attempting to commit a crime. A typical sting will have an undercover law enforcement officer, detective, or co-operative member of the public play a role a ...
resulted in the apprehension of the culprit, Jacques Soltys. Soltys later committed
suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
in jail. His son Cédric, who acted as an accomplice, served eight months in prison for his role in the affair.


Production

In 2008, of vineyard land was in production within the AOC, and 26 hectoliters of wine was produced, corresponding to just under 3,500 bottles. The five-year average annual production of the period 2003-2007 was somewhat higher, 42 hectoliters, corresponding to 5,600 bottles.


AOC regulations

The main grape variety for Romanée-Conti is Pinot Noir. The AOC regulations also allow up to 15 percent total of
Chardonnay Chardonnay (, , ) is a green-skinned grape variety used in the production of white wine. The variety originated in the Burgundy wine region of eastern French wine, France, but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from English wine, Englan ...
,
Pinot Blanc Pinot blanc is a white wine grape. It is a point genetic mutation of Pinot noir. Pinot noir is genetically unstable and will occasionally experience a point mutation in which a vine bears all black fruit except for one cane which produces white ...
and
Pinot Gris Pinot Gris, Pinot Grigio (, ) or Grauburgunder is a white wine grape variety of the species ''Vitis vinifera''. Thought to be a mutant clone of the Pinot Noir variety, it normally has a grayish-blue fruit, accounting for its name, but the gra ...
as accessory grapes, but these other grape varieties are almost never used for any Burgundy Grand Cru vineyard. The allowed base yield is 35 hectoliter per hectare (374 US gallons per acre), a minimum planting density of 9,000 vines per hectare and a minimum grape maturity of 11.5%
potential alcohol Must weight is a measure of the amount of sugar in grape juice (must) and, hence, indicates the amount of alcohol that could be produced if it is all fermented to alcohol, rather than left as residual sugar.vins-bourgogne.fr
AOC regulations, last updated 2009. The actual yield over the period 2003-2007 was 26 hectoliters per hectare (278 US gallons per acre).


See also

*
List of Burgundy Grand Crus Grand Cru (great growth) is the highest level in the vineyard classification of Burgundy. There are a total of of Grand Cru vineyards—approximately 2% of Burgundy's of vineyards (excluding Beaujolais)—of which produce red wine and produce w ...


Explanatory notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Romanee-Conti Burgundy (historical region) AOCs Vineyards it:Romanée-Conti he:רומאנה קונטי nl:Romanée-Conti pt:Romanée-Conti