Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 30/04/2007 There are more startling complexities in the 2005 Romanee-Conti than in any other wine here today, perhaps in the vintage. A stunning, high-toned and utterly unique perfume of pink grapefruit, blood orange, tangerine rind, vivid rose petal, musk, cinnamon, sage, and cassis seduces the olfactors in kaleidoscopic rotation. I hesitate to court sacrilege or ridicule with Germanic allusions but it is impossible not to imagine a great Pinot scented with Gewurztraminer and Scheurebe. On the palate, a pure, clean meatiness emerges, like butchering a meadow-fed lamb, bitter-sweet flowers flying forth in an inner-mouth profusion. Soy and black truffle lend a dark, savory note to the proceedings, leading the long finishing procession over a path strewn with rose petals. Fear not: despite its silken texture, there are abundant tannins woven into this amazing tapestry as well, and I am sure those lucky enough to own some can retain it as collateral, then leave it to their children, safe in the knowledge it has not decayed. Reverential drinking after a dozen or more years would, however, be my preference. Once the grapes in these fabled vineyards had reached a potential alcohol of 13%, reports Aubert de Villaine, he was ready to pick, because conditions had seldom been so conducive to perfect ripeness (including that of the stems). It was all done in a week, commencing with La Tache and Romanee Conti, and finishing on September 23 with Romanee-St.-Vivant (and Montrachet, on which I shall report at a future date). De Villaine intended to bottle in March or April by gravity in six-barrel lots, as has become general practice here over the past decade. ()

An exceptionally floral yet restrained nose with aromas of both rose and violets that combine with a panoply of spice notes yet the overall impression is classic young RC as the nose is both cool and reserved yet aristocratic. The sweet, intense, focused, detailed and vibrant flavors offer superb drive and punch though there is not the sheer scale of the LT yet they're finer and somehow even purer, indeed absolutely crystalline though I kept asking myself how this was possible as the purity of the La Tâche is itself mind blowing. The descriptor of 'power without weight' came to mind again and again as the flavors slide down the throat with no sense of heaviness yet the impact and precision of the presently somewhat austere finish is quite simply hard to believe. In a word, this is mind bending and in a visceral sense, this is a monumental wine that of real emotional impact. Genius in a glass.