2012 Romanee Conti

The 2012 Romanée-Conti, usually a model of restraint and elusiveness, is surprisingly big in this vintage. The flavors are quite dark and bold in a decidedly structured, brooding RC that won't be ready to deliver the full range of its extraordinary beauty for many years. Deep layers of spiced, mentholated notes continue to open up in a dazzling, contemplative Burgundy. Readers lucky enough to latch on to a few bottles are incredibly fortunate, let's leave it at that.

Full, dark red. Extremely closed nose hints at darker fruits, black olive, underbrushy soil tones and noble vegetility. Then shows its extraordinary amplitude and spherical shape in the mouth, with youthfully clenched but extremely rich flavors of berries, wild herbs, smoky minerals, underbrush and crushed rock broadening out on the back half and rising inexorably on the finish. This big boy has buns of steel without any heaviness and saturates every square millimeter of the palate. The endless, classically dry finish features substantial tannins and crushed rock, smoke and saline nuances. Perhaps a bit youthfully sullen following the higher-pitched, more floral La Tâche, but this wine is even longer.

Usually, choosing between La Tâche and Romanée-Conti is like choosing between your two favourite children. Not this year. The 2012 Romanée-Conti is one of the most spellbinding that I have tasted since I began 17 years ago. The bouquet is quite astonishing with brilliant delineation and focus, an almost disorientating sense of mineralité that soars from the glass and leaves you speechless. The palate is perfectly proportioned with a sensational line of acidity, brimming over with energy and frisson. This flirts with perfection and you know, one day it might actually achieve it. Just 350 cases produced.