Allen Meadows - Score: 99 ()

This is also intensely spicy with a similar array of highly restrained but exceptionally complex floral and cool red and black berry fruit aromas. There is a real sense of focused power to the beautifully well-delineated, pure and highly nuanced, multifaceted medium-bodied flavors wrapped in a deep reserve of dry extract before culminating in a breathtakingly persistent finish replete with the hallmark youthful austerity. Like all of the great vintages of this most famous of burgundies, it is almost inconceivably spherical with a Zen-like sense of harmony. I could taste this hours later, and like the '10 La Tâche, this is not an especially powerful vintage for Romanée-Conti, but it should be one of the all-time greats in due time. In short, young burgundy just doesn't get any better than this.