2022 Louis Latour Romanee St Vivant Les Quatre Journaux, Burgundy

Featuring black cherry, black currant, violet, graphite, sandalwood and oak spice aromas and flavors, this silky red is pure and seductive. There's also a firm underlying structure, with its saturated fruit fused to an ironclad frame. Shows superb harmony and an extended aftertaste. Best from 2028 through 2050. 250 cases made, 40 cases imported.

98 points Bruce Sanderson, Wine Spectator, September 2024

Extremely fine, youthful nose with a totally fascinating floral beauty. Incredibly silky, this great Burgundy masterpiece shines with breathtaking finesse, the enormous concentration and power totally underplayed. Super-long and super-refined finish with gigantic mineral freshness. It feels as if the wine puts you on a silver tray and lifts you up to the heavens. Drink or hold.

99 points Stuart Pigott, James Suckling, July 2024

Romanée Saint Vivant has long been one of Burgundy’s most graceful and haunting Grand Crus, producing wines that favour perfume, silkiness and detail over brute force. Louis Latour’s Les Quatre Journaux comes from a tiny parcel within this legendary vineyard, where generations of careful viticulture and patient winemaking allow the terroir to speak with remarkable clarity. The Latour family has been part of Burgundy since 1797, and wines like this show why the house remains one of the region’s enduring names.

The 2022 vintage is breathtakingly refined. Waves of wild strawberry, black cherry and red currant glide across the palate alongside notes of rose petals, violets, sandalwood and Asian spice. There is an ethereal quality to the wine, almost weightless at times, yet underneath sits incredible concentration and persistence. Subtle oak frames the fruit with whispers of cedar and cocoa while savoury layers of forest floor, truffle and crushed stone slowly emerge as the wine breathes. The tannins are impossibly fine, giving the wine a texture more like silk than structure.

This is Burgundy at its most seductive and contemplative. Pair it with duck breast and black cherries, delicate game dishes or handmade mushroom ravioli with brown butter and thyme. It is also one of those rare bottles that can quietly command an evening on its own, evolving slowly over hours in the glass while conversation drifts long into the night. Already astonishing with careful decanting, though the real rewards will come with patience over the next 20 years or more.