nanson.ch finest wines of 2000

The Most Fantastic Wine of 2000

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti
Grands Échézeaux, Grand Cru
1986

The Grand Cru
The village of Flagey-Echezeaux lies in the heart of the Côte de Nuits between Vougeot and Vosne-Romanée. There are two Grand Cru's associated with Flagey-Echezeaux, both red;

Echézeaux covering ~37.7 hectares of which 31.8 is in production

Grands Echézeaux with ~9.1 hectares, 8.6 in production

For AOC Grands Echézeaux, allowed grape varieties are Pinot Beurot (gris), Pinot Noir and Pinot Liébault. Only red wine is produced.

Perhaps 3,000 cases of Grands Echézeaux are produced each year depending on the yields. Domaine de la Romanée-Conti account for just over a third of that production - 1,150 cases on average, from the 50+ year old vines on their 3.52 hectares. The position of Grands Echézeaux is at ~260m altitude with a gently sloping Easterly exposure, just above, and looking down on the Clos de Vougeot.

The wine when compared to Echézeaux is often described as being deeper and more aromatic. Grands Echézeaux can be the longest lived of all Pinot Noir wines.

The Wine
Established restaurants in Switzerland will have built up their wine cellars over a number of years. That is not so unusual, but one of the compelling things about dining here is that they don't seem to 'revalue' and thus 're-price' their cellar list each year. Recent examples have been a 1990 Clos de la Roche from Armand Rousseau for €75, a 1991 Richebourg from Jean Grivot for €140 and this 1986 Grands Echézeaux from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti for €170. All of these bottles significantly below the retail price of recent vintages. This particular restaurant without asking, chose to decant the wine - normally I wouldn't decant a wine of this age, but I assumed that they knew what they were doing:

The wine despite the subdued restaurant lighting appeared to show a medium-full ruby colour with a lighter more brown rim. The bouquet was something that stayed with me for at least a week afterwards - like walking through a flower garden and orchard at sunset with all in full bloom (still getting carried away!). The velvety palate had medium intensity fruit, nice acidity and a quite long finish - very good though not exceptional in this area. For me though, the aromatics transcended this experience to another level. Easily the greatest wine experience of the year.