Geography

Vosne-Romanée sits in the heart of the Côte de Nuits, between Flagey-Échezeaux to the north (whose Grand Cru vineyards Échezeaux and Grands-Échezeaux are sold under the Vosne-Romanée banner) and Nuits-Saint-Georges to the south. The village is small but contains some of the most pedigreed vineyard land in wine. The bedrock is Bajocian limestone topped with shallow gravelly-clay soils, with east-southeast exposure that captures morning sun directly.

Classification

Six Grand Crus: Romanée-Conti (the monopole of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the most expensive wine in the world), La Tâche (also DRC), Richebourg, Romanée-Saint-Vivant, La Grande Rue (a Domaine François Lamarche monopole), La Romanée (a Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair monopole). Plus the Flagey-Échezeaux Grand Crus that sell as Vosne-Romanée: Grands-Échezeaux and Échezeaux. The village also has 15 Premier Crus, the most respected being Cros Parantoux (made famous by Henri Jayer), Aux Brûlées, Aux Reignots, Les Suchots, Les Beaux-Monts.

Style of the wines

Vosne-Romanée is the most aromatic and complex of the Côte de Nuits villages. The classic profile: dark red and black cherry, rose petal, exotic spice, leather, sometimes a smoky-tar note in the top examples. The texture is silken; the tannin is fine-grained but persistent; the acid is bright; alcohol typically 13-13.5%. The wines have a particular kind of aromatic lift and complexity that connoisseurs spend decades trying to recognize blind.

How they age

DRC La Tâche and Romanée-Conti age fifty-plus years routinely. Even village-level Vosne-Romanée from a serious producer ages twenty years. The legendary Henri Jayer Cros Parantoux from the 1980s and 1990s — bottles of which now sell for tens of thousands of dollars at auction — drinks beautifully today and continues to evolve.

Producers we know

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (the legendary reference), Domaine Méo-Camuzet, Domaine Henri Gouges (Nuits-Saint-Georges, but with neighboring Vosne holdings), Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair, Domaine François Lamarche, Domaine Anne Gros, Domaine Bruno Clavelier. The Henri Jayer legacy lives on through his nephew Emmanuel Rouget.