bought on release. Stored at 50 degrees. Opened tonight.
Took 2 hours to open but incredible spices on nose, superb texture and depth, very balanced. Violets and licorice, dark berry fruit, ripe tannins, just an awesome wine. There will be no trouble finishing this bottle tonight.
Bought and consumed one of these - was very good buying at $A200 or less at the time. Still have a few of the later vintages tucked away, but yes they seem to have crept up a bit price wise of late!
Are they still making this cuvee? Last vintage that I was offered was '08.
The last vintage I´v seen offered (internet) was 2011.
It escapes my understanding why the domaine did not produce (or offer?) great vintages like 2005 and 2010?
Part of the cuvée are grapes from their 1er Cru vineyards like Dessus de Malconsorts, Gaudichots and Petits Monts, that´s app. 0.60 ha all together … and usually at least 2000+ bottles.
(I think they leased the Suchots and Reignots holdings to Prieure-Roch and Liger-Belair resp.)
I believe this came about due to young vines and barrels that didn’t make the blend to offer to restaurants initially. I recall RN74 pouring this by the glass in 2002 or 03 and again with the 2006 in 2009.
Made from a second picking from all of the domaine’s vineyards except Romanée-Conti, the wine is labeled Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru. Although this rare red carries a village name, it comes from grand cru vineyards. By calling it premier cru the domaine declassified by a step.
As far as I know they leased the Reignots-holdings to LM Liger-Belair - and sold (?) the Suchots to Prieuré-Roch - nothing similar heard about Petis-Monts.
The 1999 DB contained only GC-juice from younger vines, but later vintages also used the harvest from 1er Cru vineyards.
That´s the reason why I don´t understand why they don´t release more vintages of DB - the fruit from the 1er Crus is still there, even if the total GC fruit is good enough for the Grands Crus.
If they sold it off to the negoce the price will be much lower than for their DB bottling.