Domaine de la Romanée-Conti

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) traces its modern form to 1869, when Jacques-Marie Duvault-Blochet acquired the Romanée-Conti vineyard after a succession of ownership changes following the French Revolution. The site's documented history reaches back even further: in 1232 the Abbey of Saint-Vivant received a donation of roughly 1.8 hectares on the spot that would eventually bear the estate's name.

Duvault-Blochet's descendants established the de Villaine family line that co-owns the estate to this day. During the twentieth century the Leroy family joined as the second co-owning lineage, and the domaine has since operated as a *société civile* with roughly equal shares held by both families. When Lalou Bize-Leroy left co-management in 1988, the Leroy stake remained within the Leroy / Bize-Leroy line. Aubert de Villaine and Perrine Fenal serve as current co-directors, and representatives of both families continue to run the estate jointly.

DRC moved to fully organic viticulture in the mid-1980s; biodynamic practices are applied on selected parcels. The same discipline governs every vineyard in the portfolio:

- Horse-drawn cultivation — traditional horse plowing has been reintroduced to prevent soil compaction from tractors. - Extreme low yields — against the Grand Cru ceiling of 35 hl/ha, the estate targets roughly 25 hl/ha through severe winter pruning and aggressive summer green harvesting. - Rigorous sorting — grapes are examined cluster by cluster and berry by berry on triage tables before fermentation. - Long élevage — 100% new oak is used, but barrel ageing is long enough that oak never dominates.

Because the same methods are applied identically across all parcels, the differences between wines come from terroir alone.