Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, often abbreviated to DRC, is an estate in
Burgundy
Burgundy ( ; ; Burgundian: ''Bregogne'') 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. ...
,
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
that produces white and red
wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...
. It is widely considered among the world's greatest wine producers, and DRC bottles are among the world's most expensive. It takes its name from the
domaine's most famous vineyard,
Romanée-Conti
Romanée-Conti is an ''Appellation d'origine contrôlée'' (AOC) and Grand cru (wine), Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy wine, Burgundy, France, with Pinot Noir as the primary grape variety. It is situa ...
.
History
In 1232, the Abbey of Saint Vivant in Vosne acquired 1.8 hectares of vineyard. In 1631 it was bought by the de Croonembourg family, who renamed it Romanée for reasons unknown. At the same time they acquired the adjacent vineyard of La Tâche.
In 1760, André de Croonembourg decided to sell the domaine and it became the subject of a bidding war between
Madame de 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 ...
, mistress of
Louis XV of France
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...
, and her bitter enemy
Louis François, Prince of Conti
Louis François de Bourbon, or Louis François I, Prince of Conti (13 August 1717 – 2 August 1776), was a French nobleman who became the Prince of Conti from 1727 to his death, succeeding his father, Louis Armand II, Prince of Conti, Louis Arman ...
. The prince won, paying the massive sum of 8000
livres, and the vineyard became known as Romanée-Conti. But come the Revolution, the prince's land was seized and auctioned off.
The Romanée-Conti vineyard was bought by Nicolas Defer de la Nouerre, who in 1819 sold it to Julien Ouvrard for 78,000 francs. In 1869 it was bought by Jacques-Marie Duvault-Blochet, who went on to build the domaine we know today with the acquisition of the holdings in
Échezeaux,
Grands Échezeaux and
Richebourg.
The 9.43 hectares of Romanée Saint-Vivant were bought in 1791 by Nicolas-Joseph Marey, son-in-law of the
geometer Gaspard Monge
Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse (; 9 May 1746 – 28 July 1818) was a French mathematician, commonly presented as the inventor of descriptive geometry, (the mathematical basis of) technical drawing, and the father of differential geometry. Dur ...
. The Marey-Monge family sold off part of their holdings to the Latour family in 1898, leased the remaining 5.28 hectares to Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in 1966, and finally sold to the domaine in 1988. This last deal was financed by the sale and leaseback of the domaine's holdings in Échezeaux and some in Grands Échezeaux.
As one of Napoleon's generals, Louis Liger-Belair was well placed to acquire good vineyards. And from 1815 this he did - with his son Louis-Charles, he amassed 40 hectares of prime land, including all of La Tâche. By 1933 this had declined to 24 hectares and family squabbles over an inheritance led to the Liger-Belair's sale of La Tâche to the domaine. The domaine already owned 4 hectares of the adjacent Les Gaudichots vineyard from the Duvault-Blochet days, and after much legal wrangling in 1936 this and La Tâche, were combined into a single ''Grand cru
monopole'' of La Tâche.
Vineyards
The vineyards are grouped around the village of
Vosne-Romanée, on well drained slopes facing east and south-east. The soil is
iron
Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...
-rich
limestone
Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
on a base of rock and
marl
Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, Clay minerals, clays, and silt. When Lithification, hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae.
M ...
, with vines lying around above sea level. The average age of the vines is very old – around 44 years – and the vineyards are
cultivated organically.
Soil supplements are limited to compost made from crushed vine roots, grape skins and residues from fermentation. To avoid compacting the soil with the use of tractors, horses were re-introduced to cultivate the vineyards of Romanée-Conti and Le Montrachet. Five hectares in La Tâche and Grands Échezeaux are now being cultivated
biodynamically whereby the individual vines are treated with special natural preparations and according to a strict lunar timetable.
Yields are very low at an average of 25 hl/ha (the Grand Cru rendement is 35 hl/ha). In other words, it takes the produce of three vines to produce one bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Yields are kept low through severe pruning early in the season, and green pruning (éclaircissage/vendange en vert) in July/August, with a 'passage de nettoyage' completed immediately before harvest, to cut out substandard grapes. At harvest time, the grapes are sorted into small baskets and individually examined for health on triage tables, before the winemaking begins.
Of its two most sought after red wines a wine writer has stated: "Romanée-Conti and La Tâche are masterpieces of equilibrium, associating the masculine and feminine characteristics in order to transcend them in a powerful and racy elixir. These wines reflect to perfection the aroma and tastes of the ripe fruit of old vines and the character of
terroir
(; ; from ''terre'', ) is a French language, 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, th ...
. They attain such a perfection that one could not succeed in identifying the new wood in their complex structure."
Romanée-Conti
*Grape variety:
Pinot noir
Pinot noir (), also known as Pinot nero, is a red-wine grape variety of the species ''Vitis vinifera''. The name also refers to wines created predominantly from Pinot noir grapes. The name is derived from the French language, French words fo ...
*Vineyard holding: (monopole)
*Average age of vines: 53 years
*Average production: 450 cases
*Average price per 75cl bottle: $21,336
Of its flagship wine produced from the Romanée-Conti vineyard, the wine critic
Clive Coates has stated,
La Tâche

*Grape variety: Pinot noir
*Vineyard holding: (monopole)
*Average age of vines: 47 years
*Average production: 1,870 cases
*Average price per 75cl bottle: $5,174
Old bottles of Les Gaudichots can also be found and sell for vast prices, such as US$88,125 for a case of the 1929 vintage.
Richebourg
*Grape variety: Pinot noir
*Vineyard holding:
*Average age of vines: 42 years
*Average production: 1,000 cases
*Average price per 75cl bottle: $3,596
Romanée-St-Vivant
*Grape variety: Pinot noir
*Vineyard holding:
*Average age of vines: 34 years
*Average production: 1,500 cases
*Average price per 75cl bottle: $2,957
Grands Échezeaux
*Grape variety: Pinot noir
*Vineyard holding:
*Average age of vines: 52 years
*Average production: 1,150 cases
*Average price per 75cl bottle: $2,774
Échezeaux
*Grape variety: Pinot noir
*Vineyard holding:
*Average age of vines: 32 years
*Average production: 1,340 cases
*Average price per 75cl bottle: $2,516
Montrachet
*Grape variety:
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 France, but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from England to New Zealand. For new a ...
*Vineyard holding:
*Average age of vines: 62 years
*Average production: 250 cases
*Average price per 75cl bottle: $8,611
Bâtard-Montrachet
*Grape variety:
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 France, but is now grown wherever wine is produced, from England to New Zealand. For new a ...
*Vineyard holding:
*Average age of vines: 70 years,
*Average production: 50 cases
*Average price per 75cl bottle: Not sold, only for private consumption; occasionally served to guests or given away.
* Produced since at least 1987.
References
Further reading
* Crum, Gert (2006). ''Le Domaine De La Romanee-Conti''. Uitgeverij Lannoo NV.
*Hanson, Anthony (2004). ''Burgundy''. Mitchell Beazley. pp. 310–313.
* Olney, Richard (1995). ''Romanee-Conti: The World's Most Fabled Wine''. Rizzoli.
External links
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti official site
Online sale of Romanée Conti*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Domaine De La Romanee-Conti
Romanee-Conti
Côte-d'Or
fr:Romanée-conti (AOC)