“Tasted from magnum, the 2013 Cristal Rosé is ravishing. Dense, creamy and powerful, the 2013 captures all the qualities of the vintage, specifically the interplay of rich fruit from the warm summer and cooler inflections from a year that started late and ended late with a rare October harvest. Today, the 2013 is deep and beautifully seamless, but it is also young – far too young to be at its best. Dosage is 6.5 grams per liter, a bit less than for the standard bottlings, a decision taken to balance longer aging on the lees and a bit more residual sugar that is always left in the magnums after fermentation. Readers who can find the 2013 in magnum will experience one of the greatest thrills in wine.”

“Features rich, focused flavors of peach tart, poached apricot and mandarin orange fruit, plus accents of toasted brioche, pastry cream, pickled ginger and pink grapefruit sorbet. Exudes an overall vibrant impression, with a fine interplay of elegance and complexity, showing deft integration of the vivid acidity and the satiny mousse. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Drink now through 2038.”

“This is part of Louis Roederer’s limited-edition lineup created in collaboration with Philippe Starck where they focus on zero-dosage wines. This is a blend of all three major Champagne grapes, but with a focus on Pinot Noir, which makes up 50 percent of the wine. The result is a mineral-driven wine with focused notes of guava and honeysuckle. The palate is angled, with sharp corners softened slightly by that round Pinot Noir fruit. There's an electric acidity that really brings this rosé to life.”

“The 2016 Louis Roederer Brut Rosé is made this vintage from a blend of sixty-two percent pinot noir from Cumières and thirty-eight percent chardonnay from Chouilly. This year, twentyone percent of the vins clairs are raised in barrels, but with only four percent of the blend going through malolactic fermentation. It was finished with a dosage of eight grams per liter. The bouquet is bright and very elegant, wafting from the glass in a mix of tangerine, strawberries, bread dough, a complex base of chalky soil tones, orange zest, rose petals and just a whisper of oak hovering in the background. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and refined, with a lovely core, superb mineral drive, elegant mousse and a very long, precise and impeccably balanced finish. This is a gorgeous wine that is already drinking beautifully, but which will be even better down the road with some bottle age. 2023-2060.”

“Pale and beautiful in its chalk structure under flavors of lemon and grapefruit pith, this is youthfully vibrant and just plain deli-cious: chardonnay from the white chalk of Avize. About a quarter of the base wine aged in oak, a shadow of pale pistachio behind the wine's freshness. What lasts is a clean sense of minerality, a mouthwatering structure that should sustain this for years in the cellar.”