Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 30/09/2011 The 2008 Vosne-Romanee Cuvee Duvalt-Blochet bursts from the glass with an explosion of aromas and flavors. The wine turns more subtle on the palate. Sweet, floral notes wrap around the sublime finish. The 2008 is a haunting wine graced with exquisite class and elegance. Unlike the rest of the domaine’s 2008s, it will drink beautifully pretty much right out of the gate. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2028. tasted the 2008s in bottle in late June 2011 after having gone through the 2010s from barrel. Aubert de Villaine describes 2008 as a difficult vintage with a lot of rain. Botrytis was an issue and the vineyards required constant attention. On September 14 the weather changed dramatically. A steady north wind dried out the grapes and concentrated sugars quickly, which also reduced the size of the berries. A further selection of fruit lowered yields to an even greater extent, resulting in overall production that is as much as 50% lower than normal for the Domaine. As for the wines, they are magnificent in my view, but will require considerable patience.

The 2008 Vosne-Romanee Cuvee Duvault-Blochet bursts from the glass with an explosion of aromas and flavors. The wine turns more subtle on the palate. Sweet, floral notes wrap around the sublime finish. The 2008 is a haunting wine graced with exquisite class and elegance. Unlike the rest of the Domaine's 2008s, it will drink beautifully pretty much right out the gate.

Domaine de La Romanee-Conti’s Cuvee Duvault-Blochet – in those vintages when this cuvee is essayed (which did not include 2007) – characteristically represents an assemblage from younger vines in Echezeaux, Grands-Echezeaux, Romanee-St.-Vivant, and Richebourg whose fruit did not make the cut for the estates grands vins, but for the 2008 Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Duvault-Blochet, fruit from the Domaine’s choice parcels in several prestigious Vosne premier crus was included that in past years had ended up discreetly in the hands of select negociants. Musky, bittersweetly-perfumed scents of peony and narcissus mingle with kirsch, almond extract, and fresh black fruits in the nose and carry over onto a bright yet subtly creamy palate, featuring tart-edged dark cherry and cassis tinged with bitter herbal concentrate, vanilla, and caramel. This wine treads a fine line in both texture and flavor between fascinating contrast and counterpoint on the one hand and outright bifurcation of creaminess and tartness, sweet fruit and herbal intensity on the other. (Only half of the clusters for this were destemmed.) But a deep, savory, subtly saline sense of meat broth richness that emerges as the wine takes on air helps to knit it and carries into its long, saliva-inducing finish. I can certainly understand why it was left in barrel after four grand crus had already been bottled, and this will, I feel sure, be fascinating to follow for more than a decade. Domaine de La Romanee-Conti director Aubert de Villaine perceives both the estate’s 2008 and 2007 collections as vins de garde, and I can’t argue with that assessment, even though when I first tasted the 2007s – soon after they had come out of malo – I harbored reservations, wondering whether to interpret de Villaine’s description of them as “ethereal” to read “ephemeral.” He says holding back the usual 5% share of production for the Domaine’s own cellar was difficult in the greatly reduced 2008 vintage, and that he is already regretting not having arranged to bottle a larger share in magnum. He still had time when I visited in April to reconsider the bottle format for three appellations, which were the only ones I was able to taste, since De Villaine is loathe to show wines in the first 9-12 months after bottling. (I’ll report on the full 2008 collection from bottle at a later date.) If the 2007s here were unusual for that vintage in the degree to which they gained stature in the course of elevage, such behavior was normal when it came to 2008, so that I was not surprised to hear de Villaine remark on a new-found degree of confidence in the stature of that collection. To an even greater degree than in most vintages, success in 2007 and 2008 came down to meticulousness at every stage; to quality of vine material; and to location, in all of which respects no estate in Burgundy has any advantage over the Domaine de La Romanee-Conti. Interestingly, the estate lingered no longer over the picking of their 2008s – from the first of the La Tache on September 27 to the last of the Echezeaux on October 6 – than they had over the 2007s, which were picked from September 1-11. The inclusion of stems was lowered to less than half in 2007, incidentally, but in 2008 was typically closer to three-quarters. Vendange entier is a technique not only time-honored and in continuous use at the Domaine de La Romanee-Conti (even when it fell out of favor at most Burgundy estates in the waning 20th century), but one which de Villaine and cellarmaster Bernard Noblet have subjected to repeated testing, so as to establish in any given vintage the right balance between 100% de-stemmed (“which lacks something by way of complexity,” says de Villaine) and 100% (“which can be too marked by the stems,” he continues). Importer: Wilson-Daniels, St. Helena, CA; tel. (707) 963-9661

(a premier cru bottling made from less-ripe vines and larger grapes in the Domaine's premier cru vineyards, picked a week later than the rest): Palish red. Currant, minerals, smoke and truffle on the nose. Supple and savory, with a plump texture to the strawberry and raspberry flavors. Finishes with slightly peppery tannins. This shows better balance and mid-palate texture than it did from bottle in the autumn of 2008.

Tasted out of barrel at the Domaine. The Duvault-Blochet has a light, perfumed floral bouquet with pert red-berried fruits, a touch of wild hedgerow and cut grass, developing more rose-petal scents with just a few swirls of the glass. The palate has a little piquancy on the entry, stony and reserved, not willing to show itself at the moment but elegant on the finish that is disjointed at present. I am sure this will put on more weight by next year. Tasted November 2009.