The 2020 Grands Échézeaux Grand Cru is a striking young wine, offering up aromas of mulberries and cassis mingled with orange zest, exotic spices and rose petals. Full-bodied, seamless and complete, with an immensely layered, fleshy palate, it concludes with a long, penetrating, saline finish. Such is its fruit concentration that its rich, powdery tannins are almost imperceptible. Over the last decade, the Grands-Échézeaux has tended to take a back seat to the Romanée-Saint-Vivant and Richebourg, but that certainly isn't the case in 2020.
This was a particularly memorable tasting at the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. Revisiting the bottled 2019s was thrilling, as these are some of the most sensual, dramatic young wines I've ever tasted at this address; and the young 2020s, tasted from barrel (with the exception of several cuvées that had been recently racked), show immense potential too.
A few small evolutions have been made in the cellars in the last few years, with Tonnellerie La Grange increasingly in evidence alongside historically dominant François Frères on the red side of the ledger, and barrels from Séguin Morey, Damy and Taransaud to be found in the new room devoted to the domaine's white wines. Bottling is also a touch earlier than in the past.
Aubert de Villaine had been barely able to contain his enthusiasm for the 2020 vintage when I saw him last year, and looking at the 2020s from bottle with Perrine Fenal at the domaine this year only confirmed why. This is a striking vintage for the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, which is both very stylistically distinctive—and in that sense, even a little atypical—but which also shows the estate's different terroirs very clearly. The 2020s aren't as sensual and red-fruited as the 2019s; they're deeper-pitched and spicier in profile and will demand more patience, even if both vintages are likely to prove similarly long-lived. The domaine's white wines are also especially successful this year. I've also included tasting notes on the nascent 2021s from barrel, but it's the in-bottle notes, tasted at the domaine in ideal conditions, that are as ever the most important commentaries on each vintage.