Romanee-Saint-Vivant – the wines, domaines and negociants

In my first article about the Romanee-Saint-Vivant we uncovered the history of the vineyard ending up with a list of the curent owners of RSV – see the first article about Romanee-Saint-Vivant here.

This article is about the wines made from Romanee-Saint-Vivant. First a short aromatic profile of Romanee-Saint-Vivant – secondly a list of all the wines made from RSV – some by the 10 current vineyard owners – others are made by negociants. So far it’s not a complete list, but I will update the article when I get further information.

Romanee-Saint-Vivant – aromatic profile

First of all, Romanee-Saint-Vivant is a fairly lage vineyard with 10 different owners. There are quite big shifts in the soil, and it’s therefore difficult to make one general aromatic profile for all the wines made on Romanee-Saint-Vivant – but I will nevertheless give it a try.

Romanee-Saint-Vivant can in my view produce some very refined and delicate Grand Cru Burgundies. They are more delicate and precise than most wines from Richebourg. They don’t have the power of a big Richeborg but the minerality is more finely grained with the support of a deeper soil. The words subtle, delicate and refined springs to mind – as does big and bold for a Richebourg.

When I was tasting the beautiful 2009 lineup from Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, I was very impressed by the Romanee-Saint-Vivant, and prefered it’s refinement to the equally good Richebourg. Then came La Tache 09, and it had the power and minerality of the Richebourg, but added the depthly focus also found in the Romanee-Saint-Vivant. La Tache is a better and more complete wine, but was in some sense lacking the seductive delicacy of the Romanee-Saint-Vivant.

Wines produced on Romanee-Saint-Vivant

There are now 10 owners producing wines from Romanee-Saint-Vivant – but changes in ownership, and selling wine and grapes of to negociants does give a pretty blurry picture of the wines produced on RSV – especially if we go some years or decades back.