The Walled Vineyard That
Never Left the Family.

Every pin on that map is a legend. From the Gros family's cellar door in the village, it is a short walk to the gates of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. La Tâche lies just across the vines. And at the top of the map, the family's Aux Brûlées parcel touches Richebourg itself, separated by a lane three meters wide.

Same hillside. Same limestone. Same village, farmed by a family that has been there since 1830. Here is what the neighbors trade for:

Nobody is claiming these are Romanée-Conti. But this is the same village, the same families' hillside, and the same collectors' cellars — at a fraction of one percent of the flagship's price. That is the whole argument for buying serious Vosne from a first family while it can still be found.

Dear Artisans,

In April 1860, a walled vineyard at the edge of Vosne-Romanée came up for auction. The Gros family paid 25,000 gold francs to take it whole: a fortune at the time, for 2.12 hectares of hillside called the Clos des Réas.

It has never changed hands since.

Seven generations of one family, farming one walled clos, in the most hallowed village in Burgundy. That is what you are looking at on the label engraving, and that is why the Clos des Réas remains the only Premier Cru monopole in all of Vosne-Romanée.

Michel Gros does not need retail shelves. These wines are allocated, and in this country the allocations go overwhelmingly to Michelin-starred wine lists, where a bottle appears at three times the price and nobody blinks.

Only a handful of merchants in America landed any of the 2023s. We checked every one of them: our price is the lowest listed in the country on all three wines. We secured eleven bottles of each, and there is no reorder behind them.

Vosne-Romanée is the village of Romanée-Conti, La Tâche and Richebourg. There is no more collected Pinot Noir ground anywhere, and the Gros family has farmed its heart since 1830.

Michel is the sixth generation. He started in 1978 with two hectares in the Hautes-Côtes and rebuilt the family holdings to 23 hectares across Vosne-Romanée, Chambolle-Musigny, Morey-Saint-Denis and Clos de Vougeot, taking over the legendary parcels of his father Jean Gros in 1995. His son Pierre, the seventh generation, now works beside him. Collectors buy Gros for the same reason they buy any first family of Burgundy: the vineyards never move, the standards never slip, and every vintage joins an unbroken line.

2023 was a warm, generous vintage that produced charming, fruit-forward Burgundy. At the village level, results varied with the discipline of the grower. Which is exactly why you buy the 2023s from a domaine like this one.

Jasper Morris notes that Gros tightened his cellar work this vintage, no longer heating the tanks during post-fermentation maceration, improving purity and precision. Vinous' Neal Martin calls the Village bottling “the most promising of the Domaine's Village Crus” and the Clos des Réas “one of the best wines from the domaine in 2023.” In a vintage where selection decided everything, this address delivered.

These are true cellar wines, and the critics' windows lay it out plainly: the Village opens around 2028, Aux Brûlées around 2029, and the Clos des Réas from 2030 through 2038 — a graceful fifteen-year arc from vintage.

Buy them now, while they can still be bought. Lay them down for a few years. Then open real Vosne-Romanée, from the family that owns its only monopole, on nights that deserve it for the next decade and a half.

The triangular walled clos sits on the hillock above the Réas valley, on the salmon-pink conglomerate soils that drain the slope perfectly. Eighteen months in French oak, 50–70% new, and in 2023 it produced the deepest, roundest, longest wine at the domaine — brambly berry fruit spiced with cinnamon and clove, red and black currants held by fine, patient tannins.

The parcel sits beside the family's old Richebourg ground, on 30 centimeters of stony topsoil over hard limestone — soil so dry the vegetation once caught fire in summer, which is how the vineyard got its name. The thin soils give it Richebourg's minerality with softer, earlier-drinking tannins: cherries and blueberries, purple flowers, peppercorn spice, aged in 50% new oak.

Three parcels close to the village (Aux Réas, Au-Dessus de la Rivière and La Colombière) on the same salmon-conglomerate and limestone soils as the family's crus, raised in one-third new oak. Violets and damp red fruits on the nose, dark berries, fine-grained tannins and lifting acidity on the palate. Real Vosne, from the real address, at the entry price.

The Gros family has had 166 years to sell the Clos des Réas, and seven generations have declined. When a domaine holds ground like that, in the village of Romanée-Conti, the wines mostly disappear onto Michelin-star lists before retail ever sees them.

We have eleven bottles of each of the three 2023s, at the lowest listed prices in America. They start drinking in a few years and will reward you to 2038. Take the monopole, take the Richebourg neighbor, or start at the Village — but take them while they exist.

Cheers,

— James Tran