Domaine de la Romanée Conti, Romanée-Conti (Burgundy, France) 2008

 Look, this is a good-to-great wine.  And it might get better: DRC veterans talked about how this was an unusually powerful version.  I wouldn’t open it now:  It’s fairly oaky and that sensation gets stronger with air.  But there are plenty of other things going on: dark cherry, wood smoke, forest floor, pomegranate, baking spices.  It’s the most intense wine in the lineup, the most famous wine in the lineup, and the most expensive wine in the world.  When I left the tasting, it was the wine that the distributors were sneaking back for a last sip of.  Yet somehow that 94-point score feels low.  I have to call it as I tasted it: It’s a good-to-great wine, but in 2008, it’s not the star of the lineup.  Yet to evaluate it on value is ridiculous: even if it were a 100-point wine, it still costs about the same as a decent used American car.  Most people know which of those two items they’d rather spend their money on.