In an upcoming interview with Wine & Spirits Magazine, Master Sommelier Pascaline Lepeltier responds to the question of whether there’s a wine she’s never had that she’d like to taste by saying that she “would not say no to a glass of Romanee-Conti made from the time the vineyards were still pre-phylloxera.” Looking at the history of the Cote d’Or, the legendary monopole of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti was one of the last vineyards to be replanted after phylloxera struck the region in the late 19th century, despite the fact that yields were already declining due to the advanced age of the vines. The last vintage of pre-phylloxeric vines was 1945, when the harvest was down to 2.5 hectoliters per hectare, or roughly 600 bottles in total. Extreme scarcity coupled with the historic nature of the vintage made this bottling incredibly desirable, and despite continued consumption of the wine, thousands of counterfeit bottles claiming to be 1945 Romanee-Conti have been traded over the decades including several large format bottles that were never filled by the domaine during that vintage.

After the 1945 harvest, the old Romanee-Conti vines were uprooted and the vineyard was left fallow until it was replanted in 1947. From there, no Romanee-Conti wines were produced until the 1952 vintage, making any wine claiming to be Romanee-Conti from 1946 to 1951 an obvious fake. Even before the replanting, Romanee-Conti vintages from pre-World War II years were highly prized, and because of this, we advise extreme caution when approaching these wines. If you’re considering making such a substantial investment (a single bottle of 1945 Romanee-Conti sold for $54,450 USD at a recent auction), we strongly recommend hiring an experienced authenticator.

Estate Wine Brokers currently has several vintages of Romanee-Conti in stock with guaranteed provenance including 1996, 2002, and 2009.