DOMAINE DE LA ROMANEE-CONTI La Tache Grand Cru 'Monopole' 2018 Bottle - NO DISCOUNT

Description

CORNEY & BARROW 19.5 points/20
This was the last of the Grands Crus to be picked, brought in on the 12th of September. Beautiful profound ruby colour. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a young La Tâche in which the ingredients, infinitely complex and intricate are offered with such startling clarity. The nose is primal for sure but fantastically exotic, with Asian spices, that characteristic eastern tea leaf perfume (which almost always comes with much greater maturity), darkest red fruits and fascinatingly flowers - lavender and rose - all of these presented with an almost atmospheric lightness of touch.

The palate is sweet initially, deceptively so for it masks the calm, measured build-up of layered intense concentration, profound powder fine structure, perfect extraction and quite extraordinary freshness and length. The magic is the fact that with all these powerful ingredients and almost ridiculous complexity and purity there is no sense of weight whatsoever. Unearthly. And the greatest young La Tâche I have yet tasted.
Recommended drinking from 2030 - 2040+

DECANTER 98 points
Blind tasted by Tim Atkin MW (at 2018 En primeur tastings, Burgundy, 20 Oct 2019)
Part of Best Burgundy 2018: Top scoring wines
The grand old lady' is how Bertrand de Villaine refers to La Tâche, now planted with 50-year-old vines and responsible for one of the great wines of the vintage in 2018, as it so often is. This is a Grand Cru with incredible presence and self-assurance, showing remarkable balance, grace and intensity, the majesty of a great, soaring cathedral, fine texture and flavours of green malt, red berries and autumn leaves. Wonderful stuff. Drinking Window 2028 - 2040