By: AJ McClellan
Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to taste one of the great wines of the world – 1963 Domaine Romanee Conti’s monopole bottling of Romanee Conti. This wine is as elusive as it is fantastic as it is one of the rarest bottles on the market.
We tasted the wine over dinner and I must say it was one of the top five experiences of my life. The wine opened with an old leather bouquet and showed enough earth to bury the case it originally came from. Fortunately I opened the wine a good hour before dinner. Once we got the juice in the glass it was starting to show some life with dry black plums, racing notes of currants, and veins of dusty minerality. I cherished my glass of this wine over the two hour dinner and it opened more and more until I begrudgingly finished my last sip. I only hope that one day I will be able to taste the wine again as the finish still haunts my palate…