6 Decades of La Tache

This wonderful La Tâche vertical was thoughtfully curated with the goal of understanding what defines La Tâche. With vintages of variable ripeness and character across 6 decades, you’d think it would be easy to identify the common theme.

• 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée St. Vivant 91 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Romanée St. Vivant Grand Cru

  It’s hard for me to really love any of the 2011 range today; they’re stemmy and herbal enough to distract substantially from the positive attributes which are there. And there are positive attributes lurking - lively fruit with a bit of Vosne spice conveyed with a light touch. It was easy not to finish the glass with the other wines on the table and, having the luxury to check in on this over the course of about 4 hours, we watched the green notes subside - but so too did the wine as a whole.

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• 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Richebourg

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Richebourg Grand Cru

  Tasted side by side with the RSV and La Tâche, the Richebourg comes across as closed on the nose without identifiable flaw. I appreciate the palate depth here which is impressive in its own right, but like the RSV there’s too much stem for my taste. It’s one thing when a touch of green herbaceousness accents the wine, but this overwhelms. There was talk about this bottle being off owing to the muted nose and perhaps it was, but it conformed with the green 2011 notes of the obviously correct wines so for anyone (like me) who can’t stand green, I would approach this with great caution. I would love to be surprised in 10 years. Time will tell.

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• 2011 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 93 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, La Tâche Grand Cru

  The La Tâche undoubtedly dominates the Richebourg and RSV in 2011, but is that because there’s more depth, more dramatic scale to the palate - or simply because there’s less green? What’s for sure is that the scale of the palate is impressive, deep and spicy, with fresh raspberry and a little hoisin, unfolding in the mouth. Beautiful, long finish. A great La Tâche? No. Crossing the 2011 finish line in reasonably good shape? Sure.

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• 2000 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 95 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, La Tâche Grand Cru

  This bottle is a little inexpressive compared to another recent bottle which, though not totally at its apogee, was so thrilling. Perhaps framed by expectations, this has a pretty, coiffed, round cherry nose. The palate has great length and the finish doesn’t seem to end, but it’s not as obvious as the last bottle.

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• 2001 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 96 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, La Tâche Grand Cru

  The 2001 La Tâche is showing really well at the moment, still sitting in early maturity but expressive, lively, lovely. Pure, clean cherry and rose nose, billowy and saturating but fine. The palate is packed with red apple peel and Vosne spice, managing the usual La Tâche trick of being packed but light, really fanning out on the finish.

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• 1996 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 96 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, La Tâche Grand Cru

  The 1996 La Tâche is a great surprise, seemingly in early maturity and delivering an enticing, playful sweet-sour personality showcasing the lush cherry, boysenberry, and cinnamon in a fresh, piquant frame. Beautiful on the palate, fresh, floral, and spicy with a long finish. 96-7

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• 1990 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 96 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, La Tâche Grand Cru

  In an exciting and long night of La Tâche, the 90 comes across as so fundamentally different from the rest with its slightly singed character, roasty red fruit, game, cinnamon, cardamom, effusive and wild. Succulent and ripe palate, if not quite as articulate as some vintages. I liked this more than most and, though it wasn’t deemed a 90th percentile bottle, I found it delicious and instructive as to the character of the vintage. 95-96

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• 1979 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 97 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, La Tâche Grand Cru

  Perhaps we were simply lucky with this bottle of 79 La Tâche, but it was obviously a profound example of great Vosne-Romanée. One of those wines with an almost room-filling bouquet, offering red currant, raspberry, cumin, leather, soy, sun dried tomato, and tea. But what’s more, and what really makes this great, is the dichotomies it embodies, fine-boned yet intense, mature yet fresh (skewed towards maturity). At or past its apogee, this is a compelling wine.

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• 1979 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Richebourg 97 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Richebourg Grand Cru

  Served beside the 79 DRC La Tâche, the 79 Richebourg is arguably no less impressive. Admittedly, it may not fan out quite as much as the La Tâche, but it has such beautifully succulent fruit, racy redcurrant and blueberry in addition to the spice, game, and touch of tomato it shares with its flight mate. A little more blocky in the mouth, but in my view the sheer allure of that fruit puts it beside, rather than behind, the La Tâche.

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• 1982 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 98 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, La Tâche Grand Cru

  This bottle of the 82 La Tâche surprises, belying the reputation of the vintage and offering something really profound. This marries the elegant complexity of the 79 La Tâche with the fruit vigor of younger vintages to display a superb wine at the peak of its powers. Raspberry, cardamom, squab, oolong, and mineral all whipped up into a wonderful maelstrom of Vosne-Romanée. Attention-grabbing (on the heels of two attention-grabbing wines, no less). Opinion was justifiably divided between this and the 79, which was surely finer-boned, but I couldn’t help but love this. 98-99

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• 2011 Domaine Dujac Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Malconsorts

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru

  Another expression of how 2011 was difficult, the Dujac Malconsorts doesn’t show the green that the DRCs, but it fails to show much depth or articulation. Seemingly better than the DRC riche and RSV but so much less interesting than all of the other things on the table.

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• 2005 Forey Père et Fils Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Gaudichots 86 Points

  France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru

  An interesting foil to an evening of La Tâche, the point that this best illustrates is that it has absolutely nothing in common with La Tâche in a gustatory or textural sense (a contrast that should be tempered somewhat by the fact that we did not have the 05 as one of the LT vintages). This is just big and butch, densely black-fruited without articulating anything meaningful about Vosne in general or the special spot on that slope in particular. It’s not bad, just no more than “good”.

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So what is the essence of this great wine? We drank a lot of it and spent a lot of time mulling over the question. But the vintage variation was so striking that it was difficult to point to a set aromatic profile and say, “that - that smell is La Tâche rather than another great Vosne” in the way that it’s reasonably easy to say, “that Pauillac is a Mouton, not Lafite.”

Does that miss the point? Is that too claret-centric a means of characterizing a wine? Is the immutable element of La Tâche actually non-organoleptic? Is it the depth on the palate, the ability to fan out endlessly on the palate, finishing with almost unmatched length that really sets La Tâche apart? That’s probably closer to the answer.