Romanée-Conti is an Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) and Grand Cru vineyard for red wine in the Côte de Nuits subregion of Burgundy, France, with Pinot Noir as the primary grape variety. It is situated within the commune of Vosne-Romanée and is a monopole of the winery Société Civile du Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, which takes its name after this vineyard. Romanée-Conti borders on La Romanée in the west, Richebourg in the north, Romanée-Saint-Vivant in the east and La Grande Rue in the south. The AOC was created in 1936. Wine from the vineyard is among the most sought after, and expensive, in the world. In October 2010, 77 bottles sold for a total of US$750,609 (about US$9,748 each) at auction. Ferran Adrià sold four bottles of Romanée-Conti 2004 for US$52,062 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York in April 2013. On 13 October 2018, at Sotheby's of New York, a single bottle of Romanée-Conti 1945 from the cellar of Robert Drouhin sold for $558,000. At Sotheby's Beaune auction on 2 July 2024, four new world record prices were set for Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) wines from the cellar of Pierre Chen, including a three-bottle lot of 2007 DRC Montrachet at €15,800 per bottle, a magnum of 2005 DRC La Tâche at €35,000, a three-bottle lot of 2014 DRC La Tâche at over €9,100 per bottle, and a three-bottle lot of 2005 DRC Échezeaux at €10,000 per bottle.
Characteristics Romanée-Conti has been called "one of the greatest wines of the world and the most perfect as well as the most expensive of Burgundy ... with a forceful bouquet of violet mixed with a scent of cherry, a lively and profound ruby robe, a suaveness of exceptional finesse." The wine has been highly regarded for centuries. In 1780, the Archbishop of Paris declared it "velvet and satin in bottles." A 1794 catalogue entry for an auction of the vineyard during the Revolutionary era claimed that:
It is a vineyard famed for the excellent quality of its wine. Its situation in the vineyard territory of Vosne is the most advantageous for the perfect ripening of the grapes; higher in the west than in the east, it receives the first rays of the sun in all seasons, being thus imbued with the impetus of the greatest heat of the day.... We cannot disguise the fact that the wine of La Romanée is the most excellent of all those of the Côte d'Or and even of all the vineyards of the French Republic: weather permitting, this wine always distinguishes itself from those of the other terroirs of predilection; its brilliant and velvety colour, its ardour, and its scent charm all the senses. Well kept, it always improves as it approaches its eighth or tenth year.... Wine critic Clive Coates praised the Romanée-Conti as: "the purest, most aristocratic and most intense example of Pinot noir you could possibly imagine. Not only nectar: a yardstick with which to judge all other Burgundies." Roald Dahl once wrote of it, "Sense for me this perfume! Breathe this bouquet! Taste it! Drink it! But never try to describe it! Impossible to give an account of such a delicacy with words! To drink Romanée-Conti is equivalent to experiencing an orgasm at once in the mouth and in the nose."
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