Dom. de L'Arlot
Romanee Saint Vivant Grand Cru
Vosne-Romanee
2016

The producer

A historical domaine based in the Clos d’Arlot Premier Cru in the village of Premeaux-Prissey at the southern end of Nuits-Saint-Georges, Domaine d’Arlot – with its 19^th century gardens and surrounding hillside vineyards - is considered by many to be the most beautiful estate in Burgundy.

After various owners, from the founding Vienot family, in 1987 Domaine de l’Arlot became part of the AXA Millesimes wine empire. The core of the biodynamically-farmed 14ha estate is based on the Premier Cru monopolies of Clos de l’Arlot and Clos des Forets including a stunning white wine from 5% of the Clos de l’Arlot planted to chardonnay. These are beautiful, elegant, fragrant wines and are among the best of Nuits-Saint-Georges.  

In addition to their holdings in Nuits Saint Georges, the Domaine purchased in 1991 two highly-desired plots in Vosne-Romanee – Premier Cru Les Suchots and Grand Cru Romanee-Saint-Vivant. The Romanee-Saint-Vivant portion abuts La Tache on one side and Romanee-Conti on the other, arguably the best of the appellation. The talented Geraldine Godot took over winemaking in 2014 and has lifted the wines to even greater heights.

The wine

Arlot owns 0.25 hectares in the Romanee-Saint-Vivant grand cru, which is located at the northern end of the Vosne commune, immediately below the grand crus of Richebourg and Romanee-Conti. The soil is rich in chalk and clay, and wines from here are often considered some of the village’s most delicate. The wine ferments in oak vats and then following ages for 15 months in 30-50% new oak barrels. A wine of radiant black cherry delicacy, silky tannins, elegance, and great minerality.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.