Silent upon a peak in Darien

I AM often asked what my favourite wine is. My usual answer used to be "I don't know. I really do not have a favourite wine."

Until today!

Last night I drank a Montrachet by Domaine Romanee-Conti. Then I knew. Montrachet is the wine I most admire, enjoy tasting, drinking, and ruminating over! Whose Montrachet? This is difficult, despite there being not many growers.

The Montrachet vineyard is very small, straddling as it does, the communes of Puligny Montrachet and Chassagne-Montrachet. Some growers own as little as 0.04 hectares (Chateau Puligny-Montrachet). The general consensus would rank Domaine Romanee-Conti's Montrachet at the top of the list.

The other contenders for top place could be Domaines Ramonet, Leflaive and Lafon. The difficulty in deciding which of these I would nominate as my best is that one does not get to drink them often enough, and the reason for that is simple. Apart from being difficult to find as production by any grower of Montrachet is so small, the principal obstacle is price. Montrach…