FLOAT 100 · Wine · No. 1
Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Romanee-Conti Grand Cru 2015
From a single 4.5-acre patch of Burgundy that a French prince fought to buy in 1760 came fewer than 5,000 bottles of 2015, the vintage critics scored perfect in the year Burgundy's vineyards were listed by UNESCO.
- Maker
- Domaine de la Romanee-Conti
- By price in wine
- 2 of 100
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Create a free account- Producer
- Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Vosne-Romanee, Burgundy
- Vineyard
- Romanee-Conti, a grand cru monopole owned entirely by the domaine
- Vineyard size
- About 1.8 hectares (roughly 4.5 acres); sources give 1.8 to 1.88
- Grape
- Pinot Noir
- Vintage
- 2015, harvested September 10
- Yield
- 22 hectoliters per hectare
- Bottles made
- 4,831 bottles of the 2015, by one count
- Alcohol
- 14.0%
- Grand cru since
- 1936
- Co-director at the time
- Aubert de Villaine, co-director from 1974 to 2021
The prince's vineyard
Romanee-Conti is a single vineyard of about 1.8 hectares in the village of Vosne-Romanee, in the Cote de Nuits of Burgundy. It is a monopole: the whole vineyard belongs to one owner, the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, and every bottle that carries its name is made there, from Pinot Noir.
In 1760 Louis Francois de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, won a bidding contest for the vineyard and paid 8,000 livres for it. His name has been attached to the vineyard ever since. In 1869 it was bought by Jacques-Marie Duvault-Blochet, and his descendants, the de Villaine family, remain co-owners of the domaine.
The vineyard's original pre-phylloxera vines lasted until the end of the Second World War. The 1945 vintage, from which only about 600 bottles were made, was the last from those vines. It lay fallow, was replanted in 1947, and the domaine did not release Romanee-Conti again until 1952. The vineyard became a grand cru appellation in 1936.
2015: an easy year that made a great wine
The 2015 growing season began with a mild winter. Flowering came early and quickly, which let the grapes ripen evenly without tipping into overripeness.
The domaine picked Romanee-Conti on September 10, 2015, at a yield of 22 hectoliters per hectare. For comparison, the domaine's yields across its vineyards average around 25 hectoliters per hectare, against a grand cru norm of 35. One count puts the 2015 at 4,831 bottles.
Critics treated it as one of the summits of a great red Burgundy year. Robert Parker's Wine Advocate gave it a perfect 100 points, describing a bouquet of kaleidoscopic complexity, with raspberry and red plum mingling with rose petal, peony, blood orange and spice, and supremely elegant tannins cloaked in delicate red fruit. Falstaff also scored it 100, Vinous 99, and Jancis Robinson 20 out of 20. Burghound's score is reported as 99 or 99-plus depending on the source, with a note that the nose is restrained to the point of being almost mute until it opens into floral, spice, tea and incense-like tones.
Aubert de Villaine
The 2015 was made under Aubert de Villaine, who co-owned and co-directed the domaine from 1974 until the end of 2021. He was one of the judges at the 1976 Paris tasting that pitted California wines against French ones, and with his wife Pamela he also owns a domaine in Bouzeron in the Cote Chalonnaise, where they campaigned successfully for a separate appellation for Bouzeron's Aligote in 1998.
Leadership of the domaine changed in the early 1990s, when the co-director Lalou Bize-Leroy was removed; sources differ on whether that happened in 1991 or 1992. Perrine Fenal joined the management in 2018, and when de Villaine stepped down at the end of 2021 to an advisory role, he was succeeded by his nephew Bertrand de Villaine.
De Villaine's other great project came to fruition in the same year as this wine. In 2007 he founded and chaired the Association des Climats du vignoble de Bourgogne, which campaigned to have Burgundy's patchwork of named vineyard plots recognized by UNESCO. On July 4, 2015, two months before the Romanee-Conti harvest, the Climats of Burgundy were inscribed on UNESCO's list as a cultural landscape.
The world in 2015
The vintage grew through a turbulent year in France. In January gunmen attacked the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people. Abroad, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal in April, and in July Iran agreed to long-term limits on its nuclear program on the same day NASA's New Horizons became the first spacecraft to visit Pluto.
Days before the harvest, on September 14, 2015, the LIGO detectors recorded gravitational waves for the first time, a finding announced in February 2016. In Burgundy, the UNESCO listing that summer put the region's centuries of vineyard naming on the same footing as the world's great monuments.
Price and rarity
With roughly 5,000 to 6,000 bottles in a typical year, about 450 cases, Romanee-Conti is one of the scarcest fine wines made. Most bottles are allocated, and release prices sit far below the secondary market.
Auction results for the 2015 published by an online wine auction in France show how the price has moved in euros: a bottle sold for EUR 17,355 in 2020, EUR 31,620 in 2022, EUR 22,911 in 2023, and EUR 20,380 including fees in June 2026, when a single bottle drew 30 bids and went to a French buyer. A three-bottle lot of the 2015 was offered at auction in June 2020 with an estimate of $45,000 to $65,000.
The vineyard's older vintages show where the ceiling sits. In October 2018 a bottle of the 1945, one of the 600 made before the replanting, sold at auction in New York for about $558,000, a record at the time for a single bottle of wine.
The numbers
- Vineyard
- About 1.8 ha (sources give 1.8, 1.81 and 1.88)
- Typical production
- About 5,000 to 6,000 bottles (around 450 cases) a year
- 2015 production
- 4,831 bottles, by one count
- 2015 harvest
- September 10, 2015, at 22 hl/ha
- Robert Parker / Wine Advocate
- 100
- Vinous
- 99
- Jancis Robinson
- 20/20
Timeline
Louis Francois de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, buys the vineyard for 8,000 livres after a bidding contest.
Jacques-Marie Duvault-Blochet acquires Romanee-Conti; his descendants, the de Villaines, still co-own it.
Romanee-Conti becomes a grand cru appellation.
The last vintage from the old ungrafted vines: about 600 bottles.
The vineyard is replanted after lying fallow.
Romanee-Conti is produced again.
Aubert de Villaine becomes co-director of the domaine.
De Villaine serves as a judge at the Paris tasting of California and French wines.
De Villaine founds the association that campaigns for UNESCO listing of Burgundy's climats.
The Climats of Burgundy are inscribed on UNESCO's list of protected sites.
The domaine harvests Romanee-Conti 2015 at 22 hl/ha.
Perrine Fenal joins the domaine's management.
A bottle of Romanee-Conti 1945 sets a single-bottle auction record in New York.
Aubert de Villaine steps down as co-director; his nephew Bertrand de Villaine succeeds him.
A bottle of the 2015 sells at auction in France for EUR 31,620.
A single bottle of the 2015 sells at auction in France for EUR 20,380 with fees after 30 bids.
The world in 2015
Gunmen attack the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes Nepal.
UNESCO inscribes the Climats of Burgundy as a protected cultural landscape.
NASA's New Horizons flies past Pluto, and Iran agrees to long-term limits on its nuclear program.
Cuba and the United States restore full diplomatic relations.
LIGO detects gravitational waves for the first time.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Jun 2026 | $23,470 | Sold at auctionAt an online auction in France: EUR 20,380 (including buyer's premium), shown in USD at the Federal Reserve monthly average (1 EUR = 1.1516 USD). |
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Romanee-Conti Grand Cru 2015 is number 2 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (1 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- The whole Romanee-Conti vineyard covers only about 1.8 hectares, and one domaine owns all of it.
- A French prince paid 8,000 livres for the vineyard in 1760 after outbidding a rival, and his title is still on the label.
- Romanee-Conti went unmade from 1946 through 1951 while the vineyard was replanted.
- The man who made the 2015, Aubert de Villaine, was a judge at the 1976 Paris tasting that pitted California wines against French ones.
- The 2015 was picked two months after Burgundy's vineyards were listed by UNESCO, a campaign de Villaine led.
- A bottle of Romanee-Conti 1945, from the last crop of the old vines, sold for more than half a million dollars in 2018.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026