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97 Wine Spectator
Light brick with orange edge. This also exhibits a slight vegetal note initially, along with plenty of forest underbrush, growing more penetrating with a core of sweet cherry in its bouquet. A caressing red, full of silky, sweet cherry and berry flavors and smoke. A picture of finesse, superb balance and a long finish. This loses nothing after an hour in the glass.--La T?che non-blind vertical. Drink now through 2020. ?BS
90 Robert Parker
PRODUCTION: 2,354 cases. This wine is clearly in decline, but at one time it was a great La Tache, meriting a score of 96 or higher (the DRC Richebourg and Grands Echezeaux were also magnificent in 1966, but they too are heading toward their graves). The 1966 La Tache's color exhibits more depth than the 1970, with some medium ruby/garnet accompanied by considerable orange, rust, and amber at the edge. The nose remains 90+ material, offering intense, fragrant scents of saddle leather, sweet, jammy, red and black fruits, cedar, herbs (Michael Broadbent always calls this vegetal herbaceousness "beetroot"), and that game-like, smoked meat character. The flavors reveal more alcohol, glycerin, tannin, and acidity than fruit. Some tasters felt this wine was way over the hill, whereas others thought it to still be a complex, rich, enticing red Burgundy, aromatically speaking, but quickly drying out on the palate.
Producer
Domaine de la Romanée Conti
Not only the most iconic domaine in Burgundy, but also possibly in France and even in the world. With a monopoly of the two greatest vineyards - Romanée-Conti and La Tâche - and with a generous handful of some others within Vosne-Romanée and beyond, it secured its revered position all while being completely discreet and even modest. It is co-owned by the Villaine and Leroy-Roch families, with Aubert de Villaine guiding the ship since 1974. But it can trace its roots back to the 13th century, when its first vines were planted by the monks of Saint-Vivant. They have been organic since the 1980s and biodynamic since the 1990s. They are also undoubtedly the most famous domaine in the region that uses (and has always used) whole cluster fermentation, an established technique that was eschewed by Henri Jayer, but has inspired many others in recent years. Allen Meadows, arguably the most knowledgeable Burgundy expert and critic in the world, has only given one wine a perfect score - the 1945 Romanée-Conti.