Louis Roederer Brut Premier Champagne, 750ml

Product Information

Collection has all its warmth and generosity thanks to the perfect ripeness of the fruit harvested in the 2018 vintage, yet it is the freshness, energy and complexity of the ‘Réserve Perpétuelle’ created in 2012, as well as the texture imparted by the oak ageing, that extend and elongate the wines’ body resulting in unrivalled finesse and persistence. The company we know as Louis Roederer was founded in 1776 as Dubois Père & Fils. In 1833 Louis Roederer inherited the company from his uncle and changed the name. Crucial to the early success of Roederer was its targeting of foreign markets. The Russians in particular became enthusiasts of Roederer Champagne, so much so that in 1876 a special sweet cuvée was created at the request of Tsar Alexander II. Bottled in clear crystal, rather than ordinary glass, it was appropriately named Cristal. After the Russian Revolution, a new blend of Cristal was made commercially available and remains the original prestige cuvée for which Louis Roederer is perhaps best known today. The result of all this? A new multi-vintage blend called Collection. Launched last year, Collection 243 (marking the 243rd blend created by the champagne house since its creation in 1776) is an embodiment of Louis Roederer’s ability to evolve its wines to resonate with today’s times.

a b Marthinsen, Tom, Dagens Næringsliv (April 28, 2008). "Superelegant kjendis-champagne" (in Norwegian). Archived from the original on February 8, 2012 . Retrieved April 30, 2008. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link) Falstaff, Champagne Louis Roederer Revolutionises Its Multi-Vintage Offer, Anne Krebiehl MW, 20/07/2021 The Roederer portfolio also holds Bordeaux estates Château de Pez and Château Haut-Beausejour in Saint Estèphe. [9] In late 2006, the Rouzaud family acquired majority share in the second-growth estate Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. The deal also included the Cru Bourgeois estate Château Bernadotte. [10] In parallel, Roederer has greatly increased the proportion of oak-aged reserve wines contained in the blends. These wines from previous years and young plots on the Cristal estate, aged in large French oak vats (foudres), are a Louis Roederer hallmark. They provide a perfect point of balance with the freshness created by the Perpetual Reserve, giving the wine greater intensity and honing its salinity. Have you tried Champagne with French Fries? You’ll be surprised how well they go together. Louis Roederer Brut Premier

The 240 hectares of Louis Roederer's vineyards are distributed across the three main Champagne growing zones, the Montagne de Reims, the Vallée de la Marne, and the Côte des Blancs. Louis Roederer's vineyards cover two thirds of the company's needs, which is rare for a Champagne House. This situation gives Louis Roederer greater control over its production. Seventy five hectares are cultivated according to biodynamic principles, which makes it the largest biodynamic estate in the Champagne region. It is certainly different to the Brut Premier. It’s edgier, racier. Very youthful and elegant. There’s great texture to the fruit (there’s been a real focus on getting lots of dry extract into the wine), a refreshing vein of acidity. It’s a lovely wine that I feel would benefit from a few more years in the cellar. In theory it should be treated like a vintage Champagne. It has the makings of something quite special, but the component parts need a moment to harmonise and develop complexity. This is certainly a wine to watch. Later, in the 1920s, future heir to the House Léon Olry-Roederer continued this boundary-pushing spirit by focusing his attention on creating a highly balanced wine: a blend of several vintages, to ensure his wine would always be of the utmost quality. This formed the basis of the later non vintage cuvée named Brut Premier. Eco-Friendly Practices Weather: 2018 was a warm, continental and truly unique vintage. Summer set many new records in terms of heat, drought and sunshine levels. The Pinot noirs displayed a luxurious texture whilst the Chardonnays were dense and saline where harvested at perfect ripeness and the Meuniers were intensely fruity. The harvests began on 27 August and ended on 8 September. With all these sparkling credentials and initiatives, it’s no surprise Louis Roederer has a plethora of awards under its belt. Last year the champagne house won the Golden Vines Gucci Sustainability Award, a prestigious accolade often billed as the Oscars of the wine world. It has also been crowned the most admired champagne brand in the world for four consecutive years, an award decided by Drinks International. Each year, the magazine brings together over 300 sommeliers, wine writers and experts, tasking them with putting together a list of the most esteemed champagne producers. The Final Word

The graphics offered during the presentation are fascinating. For each Collection, there is an honest assessment (color-coded and transformed into an abstract shape of potential) of whether each of the winemaking variables highlighted above has been successfully employed. Jean-Baptiste is hard on himself; in the Collection Essai 238, for example, he singles out “too much impact of the malolactic fermentation.” Accordingly, the proportion of the malo has been gradually reduced, and is only 35% for the Collection 244. Another example is the Collection Essai 239, where he feels that the dosage is too high at 8g/l… the dosage in the 244 has been accordingly reduced to 7g/l. And so on… Photography courtesy of Champagne Louis Roederer It may seem both perverse and necessary, then, after such an eloquent paean to the virtues of the Multi-Vintage blend, to finish with two Vintage wines. Only Jean-Baptiste could get away with this, but he does have a distinct advantage in that the two wines are Roederer Cristal, the 2015 Brut and the 2014 Rosé. Interestingly, and almost ironically, the discussion focuses, as it has to do, on the vintages themselves. No reserve wines or perpetual reserve to assuage the hot, humid (there was mildew) summer of 2015, or the rainy early season of 2014. Despite this, or maybe because of it, the focus is all on the vineyard and the measures adopted in terms of yields, bunch size, canopy management, and the like, to temper the conditions. Once again, the annals of 1834 are significant; they precisely outline, for example, the best Chardonnay vineyards, which, nearly 200 years later, make up the mainstay of the vines that feed today’s Cristal. The mid-slope chalk is naturally and perfectly irrigated; Jean-Baptiste describes the underground reservoir, source of the Rivers Marne and Seine, as “Champagne’s biggest secret.” For the past few decades, Louis Roederer has focused its efforts on a strong commitment to sustainable practices. After taking over the company in 2006, Rouzaud implemented a biodynamic farming process – and now 155 hectares of the brand’s vineyards are certified organic and farmed using biodynamic principles (the remaining land is farmed using the same methods, but it is not yet certified). And, impressively, the entire estate is sustainably certified Haute Valeur Environnementale Level 3 (High Environmental Value) – the highest level available, awarded on factors like biodiversity, fertilization, phytosanitary protection and water management.The total annual production of Roederer is approximately 3.5 million bottles, of which 70–80% is Louis Roederer Brut Premier. [3] The wines [ edit ] Non-vintage [ edit ] Brut Premier [ edit ] As average temperatures increase year on year, this blending philosophy is perhaps not as relevant as it used to be. Certainly, that’s what Lécaillon believed and in 2012, he created a perpetual reserve (like that of a Solera system, which will be topped up with juice from the most recent vintages) of half Pinot Noir, half Chardonnay made up of juice from the following vintages, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016.