1989 Échézeaux Grand Cru Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

🍇 100% Pinot Noir
📅 Vintage: 1989
📍 Burgundy – Côte de Nuits – Vosne-Romanée
⭐ Robert Parker WA: 91 | Burghound: 93 | Jasper Morris: 92
📦 75 cl
⏳ Maturity: Peak – Drink now through 2030

✨ Introduction

From the hallowed ground of the Côte de Nuits, this 1989 Echézeaux from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC)offers a rarefied glimpse into one of Burgundy’s most illustrious domaines at a formative moment in its modern era. Perched on the western flank of Vosne-Romanée, the Echézeaux vineyard—often the most precocious and accessible of DRC’s Grand Crus—produces wines of silken texture and haunting aromatics. In 1989, amid a warm, generous growing season, this bottling gained a deeper, fleshier profile, adding a dimension of lushness to its innate delicacy. Today, it stands as a pinnacle of maturity, grace, and domaine pedigree—coveted by collectors, cherished by those who adore Pinot in its truest, most transparent form.

📅 The Vintage – 1989

The 1989 vintage was marked by a dry, warm summer across Burgundy, leading to an early harvest and naturally low yields. While the heat advanced ripeness, careful growers like DRC preserved the fruit’s elegance by harvesting at peak physiological maturity. The result: wines with rich, expressive fruit balanced by surprisingly vibrant acidity and refined tannins. Echézeaux 1989 captures the charm of the vintage with a structure that has aged beautifully, now offering depth without weight and a sense of effortless harmony.

👃 Tasting Notes

Appearance

A shimmering garnet core gives way to a pale brick-orange rim—textbook aged Pinot Noir. Clarity is luminous, with fine sediment suggesting minimal filtration and attentive cellaring.

Nose

A soaring bouquet—at once floral, earthy, and ethereal. Wild strawberries, dried rose petals, and redcurrant compote weave into notes of autumn leaves, sandalwood, and fine tobacco. A whisper of sous-bois and faded violets recall a forest at twilight. Over time, fleeting hints of orange pekoe tea and game emerge, evidence of its aristocratic evolution.

Palate

The mouthfeel is gossamer—elegant and seamless, with acidity that lifts rather than drives. Silky tannins frame flavors of cherry skin, spiced plum, mushroom broth, and black truffle. There’s a quiet persistence here—more murmur than crescendo—with a mineral-inflected finish that lingers like a fading sonata.
Decant gently for 30 minutes to allow its fragile aromatics to fully blossom.

Pairing

Exquisite with roast squab, duck breast with cherry reduction, or earthy dishes like mushroom risotto or grilled chanterelles. A sublime match for Époisses or Brillat-Savarin cheese.

🏰 The Estate

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti needs no introduction: a benchmark of purity, heritage, and artistry in wine. As the steward of Burgundy’s most sacred climats, DRC has long championed biodynamic farming (formally adopted in 1985) and low-intervention winemaking. Their Echézeaux parcel, comprising 4.67 hectares of mid-slope vines, offers a more accessible and immediate expression of the domaine’s touch, often showing its character earlier than the more brooding Romanée-Conti or La Tâche. Yet even in its relative youth, Echézeaux from DRC displays stunning finesse, nuance, and longevity.

🏆 Awards and Critics

WA – 91/100
Burghound – 93/100: “Superb elegance… a wine of nuance and subtle depth.”
Jasper Morris – 92/100: “A beautiful, fully mature DRC with lifted aromatics and velvet texture.”

🖋️ Final Impressions – Signature & Emotion

The 1989 Echézeaux from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is not a wine of thunder, but of poetry. It doesn’t shout—it sighs. At peak maturity, it reveals the soft-spoken nobility of aged Pinot Noir, chiseled by time and terroir. Ideal for connoisseurs who cherish subtlety over power, and for those rare moments when wine becomes memory.

🍂 Drink now through 2030, ideally from Zalto Burgundy stems. Serve with reverence and quietude—it deserves nothing less.