The 1990 Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti continues to cruise along, blossoming in the glass with a lavish bouquet of black cherry, blackberry, sous bois, dark spice and a touch of game. On the palate, the wine is ample and full-bodied, with a chassis of fine, melted tannins—though just a few rough edges poke out on the finish (a function of arrested phenolic maturity?)—enrobed in juicy, vibrant fruit that lingers through the long and penetrating finish. Bottle number 7492. - William Kelley

The 1990 RSV from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti is also a beautiful example of the vintage, but it seems a bit further along its evolutionary march than either the Echézeaux or Grands Echézeaux. The truly superb nose offers up scents of raspberries, beetroot, cola, duck, woodsmoke, forest floor and smoky new wood. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and already quite tertiary, with a fine core, lovely soil inflection and a long, modestly tannic and slightly chunky finish. In this wine, the ripeness of the vintage has taken away just a hair of the inherent elegance of the terroir on the backend of the palate, but it has countered this with a bit more mid-palate muscle than in many vintages. A lovely wine, but I suspect it will not be quite as long-lived as either of the above two wines.