2022 DRC Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Le Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru

Note: from 4 different parcels in both Aloxe and Pernand. Much like its 2023 counterpart, the expressive and ripe nose display plenty of wood influence on the ripe aromas of mostly spicy white orchard fruit and mineral reduction. On the palate the impressively scaled broad-shouldered flavors are lavishly rich and opulent with palate soaking dry extract though importantly, the firm acid spine keeps everything in the proper balance on the seductive and highly persistent finale. This is certainly built to repay a decade plus of cellaring but again like the 2023, it's not so backward that it couldn't be reasonably approached after only 5 to 7 years.

Aromas of sweet golden orchard fruit mingle with notions of clear honey, white flowers, toasted hazelnuts and petrol in a rich and inviting bouquet, introducing the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti's 2022 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru. Full-bodied, ample and layered, with a sweet and enveloping core of fruit, ripe acids and a chalky finish, it's built along lines similar to the demonstrative 2019. As readers may remember, it's produced from almost three hectares of vineyards, in the communes of Aloxe-Corton and Pernand-Vergelesses, that have been leased from Bonneau du Martray since November 2018. Once again, it reflects the domaine's vision for Chardonnay—picked at full maturity, in a powerful, gastronomic style. If the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2021 vintage was all about flowers and spices, the 2022s are all about fruit. These are rich, generous wines, for the most part very integrated out of the gates, and though they'll surely reward patience, they will not demand it. If one must find a recent analogy, it might be some sort of amalgam of 2018's ripeness and generosity of fruit with the more suave, transparent structure of 2017, but the comparison that came to mind as I tasted the wines was in fact with the domaine's 1964s. Harvest began with the red Corton plots on 30 August, finishing with Échézeaux and Corton-Charlemagne on 13 September. After the historically low yields of 2021, the vines bounced back, delivering a comparatively bountiful crop of between.(WK)