2022 DRC Corton

The first of the grands crus to be harvested, on 30 August. The 15 th vintage since they started leasing three parcels on the hill of Corton from the Prince de Mérode family: Les Renardes (0.5 ha), Le Clos du Roi (0.57 ha) and Les Bressandes (1.2 ha). Vines on average 50 years old. Lightish cherry red, smudgy rim. Riper and darker fruited than some of the DRC 2022s in this tasting. Dry, chalky, chewy tannins, the tannins as much as the acidity bring freshness. Opens out to a more stemmy freshness, lightly peppery. Deep-fruited purity. As it opens further, there is a distinctive perfume: not so much peony as a scent that makes me think of purple poppies even though I don’t think poppies have much of an aroma. There’s a green wooded note, too, not a green unripeness but a green scented leaf. Raspberry fruit emerges. If a raspberry was a flower… Darkly succulent and still finely tannic on the finish. Probably more tannic than it seems. The tannins are not so much polished as smoothed to dry finesse. (JH)

The 2022 Corton Grand Cru was cropped at 40.4 hL/ha on 30 August. It seems to have accentuated the estuarine component of the aromatics, showing perhaps a little more black fruit compared to previous vintages, with touches of graphite combining with the raspberry and blackberry fruit. You feel, unlike the preceding Duvault-Blochet cuvée, that the Corton is holding something back in reserve. The palate is medium-bodied with crunchy red fruit and a welcome sour cherry element that underlies the tension. Always, when compared to its companions in the Côte de Nuits, it cannot and should not disguise its slightly harder edges—a soupçon of rusticity. This is Corton after all, so it feels a little square-jawed on the finish. But there is plenty of freshness and vitality, and I can imagine this drinking well after two or three years. 946 cases produced.

The 2022 Corton Grand Cru is open and accessible, offering up aromas of plums and red fruit preserve mingled with exotic spices and creamy new oak. Medium to full-bodied, soft and velvety, with a broad attack that segues into a rich core of exuberant fruit, it's sweet and succulent, concluding with a broad, discreetly heady finish. It was here that the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti's harvest began, on 30 August 2022, and as usual, the cuvée unites holdings in Clos du Roi, Bressandes and Renardes.