Romanée-Conti is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, France, with Pinot Noir as the primary grape variety. It is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée and is a monopole of the winery Société Civile du Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, which takes its name after this vineyard. Romanée-Conti borders on La Romanée in the west, Richebourg in the north, Romanée-Saint-Vivant in the east and La Grande Rue in the south. The AOC was created in 1936.
Wine from the vineyard is among the most sought after, and expensive, in the world. In October 2010, 77 bottles sold for a total of US$750,609 (about US$9,748 each) at auction. Ferran Adrià sold four bottles of Romanée-Conti 2004 for US$52,062 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York in April 2013. On 13 October 2018, at Sotheby's of New York, a single bottle of Romanée-Conti 1945 from the cellar of Robert Drouhin sold for $558,000.
Characteristics
Romanée-Conti has been called "one of the greatest wines of the world and the most perfect as well as the most expensive of Burgundy ... with a forceful bouquet of violet mixed with a scent of cherry, a lively and profound ruby robe, a suaveness of exceptional finesse." The wine has been highly regarded for centuries. In 1780, the Archbishop of Paris declared it "velvet and satin in bottles." A 1794 catalogue entry for an auction of the vineyard during the Revolutionary era claimed that: It is a vineyard famed for the excellent quality of its wine. Its situation in the vineyard territory of Vosne is the most advantageous for the perfect ripening of the grapes; higher in the west than in the east, it receives the first rays of the sun in all seasons, being thus imbued with the impetus of the greatest heat of the day.... We cannot disguise the fact that the wine of La Romanée is the most excellent of all those of the Côte d'Or and even of all the vineyards of the French Republic: weather permitting, this wine always distinguishes itself from those of the other terroirs of predilection; its brilliant and velvety colour, its ardour, and its scent charm all the senses. Well kept, it always improves as it approaches its eighth or tenth year.... Wine critic Clive Coates praised the Romanée-Conti as: "the purest, most aristocratic and most intense example of Pinot noir you could possibly imagine. Not only nectar: a yardstick with which to judge all other Burgundies." Roald Dahl once wrote of it, "Sense for me this perfume! Breathe this bouquet! Taste it! Drink it! But never try to describe it! Impossible to give an account of such a delicacy with words! To drink Romanée-Conti is equivalent to experiencing an orgasm at once in the mouth and in the nose."
History
The vineyard currently known as Romanée-Conti has had several other names over the centuries. It was initially called Cru de Clos, when it was owned by the Church, which, through the Abbey of Saint-Vivant, was once the owner of much of today's Grand Cru vineyards in Vosne-Romanée and leased out the Romanée-Conti vineyard on a long-term basis. In 1631, the vineyard passed by marriage to Philippe de Croonembourg, a Fleming who was lord of Saint-Genois. At that time, the name was changed to La Romanée, but it is not known to what the name refers. Confusingly, La Romanée is also the name of the vineyard's immediate uphill neighbour, but the two vineyards have always been under separate ownership, as far as is known. In the 1750s, the price of de Croonembourg's La Romanée wine was six to seven times as high as Clos de Vougeot wine, and it was sold in feuillettes, half-size 114 litre barrels. In 1760, the vineyard was purchased from André de Croonembourg by Jean-François Joly, acting on behalf of Louis François I de Bourbon, the Prince of Conti. The vineyard was already held in high esteem at that time, and the prince paid a high price for it, 8,000 livres, apparently along with an additional sum under the table. This was almost ten times the price per area that had been paid for another highly regarded vineyard, Clos de Bèze, ten years earlier. Legend has it that the high price was the result of a bidding war between the Prince of Conti and Madame Pompadour, but this has been shown to be a myth concocted by inhabitants of Vosne to add to the prestige and mystique of the vineyard. In 1764 the Prince of Conti proceeded to rename the vineyard to include his own name. Under the Prince of Conti's ownership, the wine was reserved for his own consumption rather than sold.