The 2019 Grands Echézeaux Grand Cru was picked on the afternoon of September 19 and the morning of September 20, cropped at 28hl/ha. It is bridled with darker fruit than its "little brother," offering blackberry, briar, crushed iris flower and a light marine influence; this is just beautiful. The palate is silky in texture with spine-tingling acidity and good cohesion, gently building in the mouth toward a saline finish that fans out wondrously. This is a very elegant wine, completely disguising its inherent power. A stellar Grands Echézeaux that vies for supremacy against the domaine’s monopoles this year, it ranks among the best vintages I have ever tasted, right up there with the 1959, 1962 or, more recently, 2010.

The 2019 Grands Echézeaux Grand Cru is absolutely stunning. It is also the first wine in this tasting that feels less marked by the vintage, where there is a good deal of freshness to play off all the natural richness of the vintage. There is plenty of power and volume, and yet all the elements are so well-balanced. Blood orange, menthol, coffee and layers of red/purplish-toned fruit all meld together seamlessly. In richer years the Grands Echézeaux is often one of my favorite wines in the range, as is the case once again with the 2019. Of course, all of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti wines are frightfully expensive today, but if there is one hidden gem in the range in 2019, it is without question the Grands Echézeaux. It’s the wine I would personally go after most given its quality, personality and relatively – and I do mean relatively – modest price next to the other wines here.

The 2019 Grands Échézeaux Grand Cru was also showing brilliantly, unwinding in the glass with a deep bouquet of cherries, wild blueberries, dark chocolate, orange rind, rose petals, violets, cinnamon and wood smoke. Full-bodied, deep and multidimensional, it's elegantly muscular and layered, with terrific concentration and mid-palate amplitude, velvety tannins and a long, sapid finish.