2009 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Montrachet Grand Cru

A broad, muscular wine, the 2009 Montrachet Grand Cru delivers a rich bouquet of honeyed orchard fruit, tangerine oil, toasted nuts and baking spices. Full-bodied, fleshy and layered, with a concentrated core of fruit and considerable mid-palate weight, it's dramatic and expansive, gaining in vivacity with time in the glass. Surely one of the most powerful white Burgundies produced in this vintage, it is aging with grace and offers compelling drinking today.

The 2009 Montrachet Grand Cru is tasted from two bottles that had both come directly from the domaine. There are slight differences between the two, one showing a little more oxidation than the other, though both perfectly drinkable. They are quite lucid and deep in colour. The bouquet has a headiness and opulence that personally does not befit either a Montrachet of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. I cannot help feeling that the hedonistic aspect of this wine feels a bit uncharacteristic. The palate is ripe, slightly viscous and with blurred edges due to the growing season. For me it is missing the nervosité of say, the 2008 from the Domaine tasted a few weeks earlier. That is not to imply that it is not enjoyable. Of course it is! But it just misses the intellect of Montrachet in full flight. Tasted in Paris at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

The 2009 Montrachet is equally compelling. Deep, unctuous and layered, the 2009 possesses exceptional balance and overall harmony. Orange jam, spice, wild flowers mint and apricots continue to blossom as the wine opens up in the glass. Despite the warm vintage, the 2009 is not as unabashedly opulent as vintages like 1995 or 2008, where botrytis adds sweetness, oiliness and texture. Instead, the 2009 is a wine from a radiant, warm vintage. That is exactly what comes through here. With each successive tasting, the 2009 continues to become more and more expressive.