The 2020 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru from the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti has turned out beautifully, offering up aromas of crisp pear and green apple mingled with notions of hazelnuts, lime zest, white flowers, nutmeg and freshly baked bread. Full-bodied, satiny and concentrated, it's ample but incisive, with a vibrant spine of acidity and chalky structuring extract. Combining the depth and intensity of flavor of 2019 with supplemental cut and tension, it's a step up in quality from that excellent debut vintage. Aubert de Villaine had been barely able to contain his enthusiasm for the 2020 vintage when I saw him last year, and looking at the 2020s from bottle with Perrine Fenal at the domaine this year only confirmed why. This is a striking vintage for the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, which is both very stylistically distinctive—and in that sense, even a little atypical—but which also shows the estate's different terroirs very clearly. The 2020s aren't as sensual and red-fruited as the 2019s; they're deeper-pitched and spicier in profile and will demand more patience, even if both vintages are likely to prove similarly long-lived. The domaine's white wines are also especially successful this year. I've also included tasting notes on the nascent 2021s from barrel, but it's the in-bottle notes, tasted at the domaine in ideal conditions, that are as ever the most important commentaries on each vintage. (WK)