Legendary Wines in France--La Romanée Conti

In Burgundy, between Gevrey and Vougeot, in Vosne Romanée, the plot called Romanée-Conti has at first glance nothing extraordinary. Did not Stendhal use to say " Whithout those magnificent wines, I would think nowhere in the world is uglier".

Romanée-Conti covers about 1,8 hectares. It is exposed south at the limit of the Richebourg. Its ground contain a very fine clay which does not exist in the neighbouring plots. The natural draining is perfect.

The plot Romanée-Conti was traced during the XVth century, and maybe earliest in the XIIth century by the monks of Saint-Viviant. You must imagine the Pinot Noir the monks collected in Burgundy forests and very carefully selected; any how it does not give satisfactory results any where, except there.

The result his a subtile equation between grape, soil, climate, orientation and watering. The legend pretends that, until 1945, a good vine-plant was sacrificed and buried, just living two shoots out, developing itself it gave two new vine-plants. When the vineyard was reconstituted, intricate roots more than a meter deep where discovered. It was from that mulch that the new vine-plants had drawn the specific feature of Romanée-Conti.

"We are the keeper of a certain philosophy of wine and, mainly, we are concern by the perfection in details" assures Aubert de Vilaine, one of the owners of the place with the Leroys.

Those two families also look after 25 hectares of some of the most famous Burgundy crus. Thus, the client must aqcuire the wines of the domains by boxes of twelve, which means one bottle of Romanée-Conti among 11 bottles of other domains. A box of twelve bottles is worth about 3,000 Euros.