Domaine de la Romanée Conti is co-owned by the de Villaine and Leroy/Roch families, the former successors to Jacques-Marie Duvault Blochet who bought the vineyard of La Romanée Conti in 1869, the latter since acquiring the shares of other descendants of Duvault-Blochet in 1942. The Domaine is today run by Aubert de Villaine and Henri-Frederic Roch. Many people in Burgundy just refer to ‘DRC’ as “the Domaine”.
The domaine has 30 hectares of vineyards, all Grand Crus. As well as the the 1.8 hectare monopole La Romanée Conti, the Domaine purchased its other monopoly, La Tâche, in 1933, along with significant holdings in the grand crus of Richebourg, Romanée St Vivant, Grands-Echezeaux, Echezeaux, and Le Montrachet at various points in the 19th and 20th centuries. Corton was added in 2009 with Corton-Charlemagne to be released in 2018. The Domaine is the largest owners of each of the red wine grand crus.
99 Points Allen Meadows
A classic and super-fresh La Tâche nose is also quite restrained and only grudgingly offers up a kaleidoscopic range of spice elements that are laced with a wonderful array of floral nuances on the red and dark berry fruit scents. There is superb detail to the muscular big-bodied flavors that brim with both minerality and dry extract before culminating in an explosively long, balanced, youthfully austere and harmonious finish. This is sleek, classy and powerful plus it is packed with development potential though a wine that’s going to require many decades to fully resolve the very firm lashing to supporting tannins. The 2019 LT reminds me of such recent vintages as the 2015, 2010 and 1999 but it may in fact ultimately surpass all of them, which is really saying something. In short, this too is absolutely brilliant.
99 Points Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2019 La Tâche Grand Cru is sublime. Mingling aromas of wild berries and bergamot with notions of rose petals, exotic spices, violets, clove and cinnamon, it’s full-bodied, deep and concentrated, with a multidimensional palate of breathtaking plenitude. Elegantly muscular, this is a vibrant, pristinely balanced wine that concludes with a long, resonant finish. More structured and broader shouldered than the ethereal Romanée-Conti itself, this will demand and richly reward bottle age.
100 Points Decanter
The last few months of maturation in cask have moved the 2019 La Tâche from being a superb wine to be one that is essentially flawless. The wine, which already showed great intensity of black and red berry fruit and a complex web of terroir and secondary aromas, has blossomed and shed a skein of reduction to shine forth its aromas and to show boundless generosity in its impressive density and structure. All of the components work together to produce a wine that is satisfying even now but which will continue to improve for many decades to come. Drinking Window 2025 – 2065.