2010 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Saint-Vivant Marey Monge***

Good bright, deep red. Highly nuanced aromas of strawberry, flowers, cocoa powder, mocha, smoke and earth. Sweet and seamless yet taut too, already displaying great personality to the flavors of red and darker fruits, salt, pepper and earth. Wonderfully soil-driven wine with a very sweet, very long finish featuring noble, fine-grained tannins and terrific sappy verve. Showing great charm today but it's hard to imagine that this wine won't shut down in the bottle. For his part, Aubert de Villaine describes vintage 2009 as "seduction" and 2010 as "the opposite of seduction." But today the high quality of these 2010s is plain to see, even if the top four bottlings here really call for 10 to 152 years of cellaring.

The 2010 Romanee St. Vivant is dazzling. An exotic mosaic of sweet spices, red berries, dried flowers and mint bursts onto the palate in this viscerally thrilling, captivating Romanee St. Vivant. The 2010 is notable for so many attributes, but one that stands out is the sheer beauty and texture of the breathtaking finish. Anticipated maturity: 2030-2050. I tasted the 2010s twice from barrel, once in the summer just as the wines were about to be racked and then again during my early December visit. On both occasions the wines were stellar. Like virtually all of his colleagues, co-manager Aubert de Villaine was surprised by the level of the 2010s given all of the challenges of the growing season. I could repeat everything de Villaine told me, but there is no better source than the man himself, so readers who want to learn more about the 2010 harvest may want to take a look at my interview with de Villaine on www.erobertparker.com. Overall, I am very impressed with the 2010s with the exception of the Corton, which appears to be a notch or two below the 2009. The 2010 that most greatly exceeds its appellation and historical level of quality is the Echezeaux. I also tasted the 2010 Vosne-Romanee Cuvee Duvault-Blochet but the domaine had not yet decided if the wine would be released. I will report on the 2009s in our April issue. Importer: Wilson-Daniels, St. Helena, CA; tel. (707) 963-9661