DRC 2022 in bottle: 12 wines tasted and rated

If the year’s opulence almost seemed excessive at times, nature intervened in the end to produce wines of extraordinary balance. The initial promise of the wines tasted in barrel was more than confirmed in this follow-up tasting.

The domaine has just released its delicious 2022 wines to the market with a flurry of tastings for the trade and journalists, and the results are impressive.

Tasted from barrel in the autumn of 2023, the wines were almost overwhelming in their exuberance. With another year in barrel, this impression has been refined and focused.

While they still display copious fruit, there is a new precision and more emphasis on elegance and finesse instead of the raw power they showed when brand new.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores for DRC 2022 in bottle

The season in brief

Picking began on 30 August in Corton; the parcels that were so damaged in 2021 by frost produced beautiful grapes. The harvest finished on 13 September with Echézeaux.

With its newly expanded production (with the Corton-Charlemagne), the domaine now employs 80-90 people to pick each year.

Despite the size of the picking team, the entire harvest required 15 days, when previously it had been completed in 10.

The duration of the picking is due to the generosity of the year, but also to the rigorous sorting that the Domaine demands.

Bertrand de Villaine ascribes the purity of the wines to this sorting. Although the harvest was generally very healthy in 2022, a number of bunches had begun to shrivel in the heat.

Once these concentrated grapes would have been welcomed, but today, they are removed. De Villaine describes 2022 as ‘a vintage where all the extremes fit together,’ primarily as a result of the beneficent rains in June and mid-August.

Tasting the wines

Since my initial tasting of these wines from barrel, each has evolved slightly differently.

Corton

The grapes in Corton were extremely healthy, in sharp contrast to the difficulties in 2021, and nearly all were vinified as whole clusters.

The domaine farms vines in three climats: Clos du Roi, Bressandes and Renardes.

When tasting from barrel, it was the lush fruit that struck me most. Since bottling, the wine has developed a slightly rustic edge and a bit more grip.

Vosne-Romanée, Duvault-Blochet

Another cuvée that is evolving is the Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru Duvault-Blochet, which historically contained the grapes from the domaine’s 0.4ha of premier cru Petits Monts.

Since 2018, however, the Petits Monts has been bottled separately for sale to restaurants in France. The domaine owns several other parcels of premier cru but does not use the fruit.

The grapes from Les Suchots are sold off; the tiny slice of Aux Reignots is rented out; a bit of Au Dessus de Malconsorts is not in production because it has been replanted.

The only premier cru vines in the Duvault-Blochet blend are from a small amount of Les Gaudichots.

Echézeaux & Grands Echézeaux

There is a marked difference between the Echézeaux and the Grands Echézeaux, in bottle as in barrel. The former is currently showing more forward, primary fruit and exuberance, while the latter is darker, denser and more concentrated.

Interestingly, the Grands Echézeaux was picked early (2-4 September), while the Echézeaux was picked late (11-13 September), yet the Grands Echézeaux has more ripeness.

Bertrand de Villaine explains that the difference in the wine was due to the terroir itself (and to the fact that parts of the Echézeaux vineyard have been replanted, and the younger vines have now re-entered the blend), more than it is due to the harvest date.

Richebourg

It is now the turn of Richebourg to be replanted: 0.9ha have been pulled up and are now lying fallow.

The portion removed includes all of the domaine’s vines in the lieu-dit Les Vérroilles. De Villaine feels their absence has improved the wine.

Romanée-St-Vivant

Two small parts of Romanée-St-Vivant have also been uprooted due to problems with the rootstock.

The difference this culling makes was already evident in the barrel tasting, but is even more pronounced in bottle.

Romanée-Conti & La Tâche

The pinnacle of the range is Romanée-Conti and La Tâche. Both made me swoon, from barrel and in bottle.

I gave the edge to the Romanée-Conti when tasted from barrel, and I still feel this is the more complete wine and perhaps longer-lived.

On the day of the tasting, however, it was not as expressive and seemed to have gone into a dumb phase.

Such distinctions are like splitting hairs, however – both wines are dizzyingly good, and both have the potential to continue to improve for decades to come.

Corton-Charlemagne and Montrachet

The two white wines provided a compelling coda to the symphony of the reds. In most vintages (including 2022), they are not tasted from barrel, so this first look was very instructive.

The Corton-Charlemagne came first and seemed to be everything one could want from white Burgundy – until tasting Montrachet.

The latter was so concentrated, so dense and so powerful that it was difficult to taste. It was, however, picked fairly early in the proceedings (2 September).

Despite the heat of the year, Montrachet provided a sublime wine that will long live in my memory.

DRC 2022 in bottle: Tasted and rated alongside two older vintages

Wines listed by colour and then by score.

Related articles

• DRC 2021 in bottle: Seven wines and two library vintages tasted
• DRC 2020 in bottle: 10 wines tasted and rated
• Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 2022 in bottle: A first look at this abundant vintage