Romanée Saint Vivant, Domaine de la Romanée Conti 2001

As I noted in the introduction, this is clearly the best RSV in a long time with a positively classic nose of soaring Asian spices, ripe plum and a gamut of ripe, pure and lacy red and black fruits with the latter predominating all wrapped together with a seductive kiss of sweetly scented, highly perfumed violets; the nose is, in a word, intoxicating. All of this aromatic intensity leads to remarkably powerful, linear, borderline robust flavors that show simply unbelievable complexity and stunning length. While this is not as dense as the incredible 1999, or as refined as the La Tâche or La Romanée-Conti, it will very likely surpass every other RSV from the Domaine in recent memory. It's clear that all of the vineyard work that has been done in this vineyard is very clearly paying off.