Noble Rot #33 2023

Wine lovers have been swooning over Romanée-Conti for centuries. French Revolutionaries, struggling to realise the value of the vineyard without advertising its newly undesirable noble status, described it as “a balm for the elderly, the feeble and the disabled,” that will “restore life to the dying.” While Richard Olney, who wrote THE book on Romanée-Conti – the 2022 reprint of which was the reason Noble Rot was invited to a once-in-a-lifetime tasting of 25 vintages at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti – called it “a timeless perfection outside the realm of normal human experience”. Of course, there are ideological questions attached to anything that can only be afforded by princes, the 0.01%, or the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. But, as a wino, does that stop you wondering what it feels like to drink the world’s most fabled cru? It’s a tough job…