2012 La Romanée, Grand Cru, Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair, Burgundy
Critics reviews
While there is a background whiff of reduction, it is not so prominent as to mask the pretty, cool, elegant red berry fruit, spice, and exotic tea scents. There is excellent richness to the cool mineral-tinged and seductively textured middle-weight flavours that possess a really lovely sense of underlying tension on the clean and pure finish that delivers strikingly good length.
2012 is not an opulent vintage for this wine; in fact, it's almost delicate, but the gorgeous balance and mid-palate concentration should ensure a very long life. This Zen-like effort should one day be a truly stunning wine as it is already genuinely lovely. I would note that a bottle tasted in 2015 displayed a very heavy reduction, but my conclusion then was that it would gradually dissipate with age, and that prediction appears to be coming true.
Tasted several times but with inconsistent notes.
Drink from 2032 onward
Allen Meadows, Burghound.com (March 2023)
Sweet, succulent red cherries, plums, mint, spices, violets and rose petals hit the palate in the 2012 La Romanée, a wine built on pure, visceral intensity. A huge mid-palate and explosive finish round things out in grand style, but what I admire most about the 2012 is the constant push and pull of finesse and power.
There are a number of compelling wines in this tasting; the 2012 is at or near the top of the list. Readers who have the possibility of acquiring a few bottles of the 2012 should not hesitate, as it is truly a wine for kings and queens.
Drink 2025 - 2045
Antonio Galloni, Vinous.com (March 2016)
Tasted at the La Romanée vertical at Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair. The 2012 La Romanée Grand Cru was astonishing out of barrel and now in bottle...well, I was right. It displays quite astonishing definition and mineralité on the nose that does not hold back. This wants to make an impression, and it will make it now.
The palate is underpinned by a silver thread of acidity, the finest tannin that Louis-Michel has overseen to date, profound focus and sustains on the finish with balletic poise, a Pinot Noir that trembles with energy. Yes, it is awfully expensive, but the quality inside the glass is undeniable. Simply, it is a magnificent wine.
Drink 2020 - 2060
Neil Martin, Wine Advocate (July 2015)
About this WINE
Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair
The Liger-Belair family has a glorious history combining the church, the army and the wine trade. The first General Liger-Belair acquired the Chateau de Vosne-Romanée in 1815, as well as various vineyards, and when his nephew and adopted heir married a Marey heiress, the empire grew rapidly: at one point the Liger-Belairs owned La Tâche, La Romanée, La Grande Rue and significant holdings of Clos de Vougeot and Chambertin, along with an array of Vosne-Romanée premiers crus including vines in Malconsorts, Chaumes, Reignots, Suchots and Brûlées.
Unfortunately, complicated succession issues meant that the whole domaine was sold at auction in August 1933. Canon Just Liger-Belair and Comte Michel Liger-Belair between them managed to save La Romanée and small holdings of Aux Reignots and Les Chaumes. Comte Michel’s son Comte Henri devoted his career to the army, reaching the rank of general like his forebear, so the vines were looked after by sharecroppers and the wines sold through négociants.
Vicomte Louis-Michel Liger-Belair decided to recreate the family wine domaine in 2000, beginning with two plots of Vosne-Romanée and premier cru Les Chaumes. Two years later he took back control of Aux Reignots and La Romanée, although a commercial contract with Bouchard Père & Fils to distribute a proportion of the latter continued until 2006. In that year also a further 5.5 hectares of vineyards, on a farming contract from the Lamadon family, brought the domaine up to its present size.
The aim is to pick quickly once the grapes are ripe, sort them thoroughly on a table de tri, remove all the stalks and then cool the grapes to below 15ºC/59ºF for a week of pre-maceration. After the fermentation, using more pumping over than punching down, Louis-Michel likes a significant settling off the lees so that the wines will not need racking. They are raised mostly in new wood from two different coopers and three forests, then assembled in tank after 13 to 15 months and bottled two to three months later without fining or filtration.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director and author of the award-winning Inside Burgundy comprehensive handbook.
Vosne-Romanée
The small commune of Vosne-Romanée is the Côte de Nuits’ brightest star, producing the finest and most expensive Pinot Noir wines in the world.. Its wines have an extraordinary intensity of fruit which manages to combine power and finesse more magically than in any other part of the Côte d’Or. The best examples balance extraordinary depth and richness with elegance and breeding.
Situated just north of Nuits-St Georges, Vosne-Romanée boasts eight Grand Cru vineyards, three of which include the suffix Romanée, to which the village of Vosne appended its name in 1866. The famous La Romanée vineyard was formerly known as Le Cloux but was renamed in 1651, presumably after the Roman remains found nearby. In 1760 the property was bought by Prince de Conti, and subsequently became known as Romanée-Conti.Vosne is the home of the phenomenally fine wines of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti; divine wines that are, as they say, not for everyone but for those who can afford them. The region also boasts some of the world’s most talented, quality-conscious and pioneering producers: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti of course, but also Henri Jayer, Lalou Bize-Leroy, René Engel, as well as the Grivot and Gros families, to name but a few.
Vosne-Romanée has the greatest concentration of top vineyards in the Côte d’Or, including the tiny Grand Crus of the astonishing La Romanée-Conti (a monopoly of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti producing about 600 cases a year), the classy, complex La Romanée (a monopoly of Vicomte Liger-Belair, but until 2002 bottled under Bouchard Père et Fils, producing a minuscule 300 cases or so a year) and the little-known La Grande Rue. As the name suggests, this runs up the side of the road out of Vosne. Originally a Premier Cru, it was rightly upgraded in 1992, although its rich, spicy, floral Pinots are yet to reach their real potential under Domaine Lamarche who hold it as a monopoly.
By convention the wines of neighbouring Flagey-Echézeaux are considered part of Vosne-Romanée. These include the large, very variable 30-hectare Echézeaux (divided between 84 different growers) and the more consistent, silky, intense, violet-scented Grands Echézeaux Grands Crus.
La Tâche is another monopoly of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. It is explosively seductive with a peerless finesse, and is almost as good as their legendary eponymous wine. Richebourg is one of Burgundy’s most voluptuous wines and is capable of challenging La Tâche in some years, while Romanée-St Vivant, which takes its name from the monastery of St Vivant built around 900AD in Vergy, has a lovely silky finesse but is slightly less powerful.
If that wasn’t enough, Vosne-Romanée also boasts some absolutely magnificent Premiers Crus headed by Clos des Réas, Les Malconsorts (just south of La Tâche, and arguably of Grand Cru quality) and Les Chaumes on the Nuits-St Georges side, Cros Parantoux (made famous by Henri Jayer), Les Beaux Monts and Les Suchots on the Flagey-Echézeaux border. The old maxim that ‘there are no common wines in Vosne-Romanée’ may not be strictly true, but it is not far off.
Drinking dates vary, but as a general rule of thumb Grand Crus are best drunk from at least 10 to 25 years, while Premier Crus can be enjoyed from 8 to 20 years, and village wines from 5 to 12 years.
There are no white wines produced in Vosne-Romanée.
- 99 hectares of village Vosne-Romanée.
- 56 hectares of Premier Cru vineyards (14 in all). Foremost vineyards include Les Gaudichots, Les Malconsorts, Cros Parentoux, Les Suchots, Les Beauxmonts, En Orveaux and Les Reignots.
- 75 hectares of Grand Cru vineyards: Romanée-Conti, La Romanée, La Tache, Richebourg, Romanée St Vivant, La Grande Rue, Grands Echézeaux, Echézeaux.
- Recommended producers: Domaine de la Romanée Conti, Leroy, Cathiard, Engel, Rouget, Grivot, Liger Belair.
Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir is probably the most frustrating, and at times infuriating, wine grape in the world. However when it is successful, it can produce some of the most sublime wines known to man. This thin-skinned grape which grows in small, tight bunches performs well on well-drained, deepish limestone based subsoils as are found on Burgundy's Côte d'Or.
Pinot Noir is more susceptible than other varieties to over cropping - concentration and varietal character disappear rapidly if yields are excessive and yields as little as 25hl/ha are the norm for some climats of the Côte d`Or.
Because of the thinness of the skins, Pinot Noir wines are lighter in colour, body and tannins. However the best wines have grip, complexity and an intensity of fruit seldom found in wine from other grapes. Young Pinot Noir can smell almost sweet, redolent with freshly crushed raspberries, cherries and redcurrants. When mature, the best wines develop a sensuous, silky mouth feel with the fruit flavours deepening and gamey "sous-bois" nuances emerging.
The best examples are still found in Burgundy, although Pinot Noir`s key role in Champagne should not be forgotten. It is grown throughout the world with notable success in the Carneros and Russian River Valley districts of California, and the Martinborough and Central Otago regions of New Zealand.
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Description
While there is a background whiff of reduction, it is not so prominent as to mask the pretty, cool, elegant red berry fruit, spice, and exotic tea scents. There is excellent richness to the cool mineral-tinged and seductively textured middle-weight flavours that possess a really lovely sense of underlying tension on the clean and pure finish that delivers strikingly good length.
2012 is not an opulent vintage for this wine; in fact, it's almost delicate, but the gorgeous balance and mid-palate concentration should ensure a very long life. This Zen-like effort should one day be a truly stunning wine as it is already genuinely lovely. I would note that a bottle tasted in 2015 displayed a very heavy reduction, but my conclusion then was that it would gradually dissipate with age, and that prediction appears to be coming true.
Tasted several times but with inconsistent notes.
Drink from 2032 onward
Allen Meadows, Burghound.com (March 2023)
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