Louis Roederer Brut Premier, Reims

Tasting notes by Tyson Stelzer

40% pinot noir, 40% chardonnay, 20% pinot meuniere; one-third reserve sourced from your-vine Cristal sites; a blend of 40 villages; 55% estate grown; base wines from estate vines fermented in oak casks with batonnage (lees stirring); reserves fermented in tanks and matured in large oak casks for up to 8 years; 20-25% malolactic fermentation; aged 3 years on lees; 9.5g/L dosage.

 I’ve long adored Brut Premier, a masterful presentation of impeccably ripe fruit of intricate balance and abundant appeal: a dependable bargain in the non-vintage champagne stakes. Until the 2009 base, Brut Premier reserves came from solera, in Lecaillon’s view, lacking focus and ‘showing too much character of having been made in the cellar’.

 The solera in now no more, bringing greater focus, more precise mineral articulation and greater emphasis on ripe fruit. Dosage was sensibly dropped from 10-11g/L to 9.5g/L. The result in 2010 is a wonderful accord between pretty lemon blossom, apple and pear fruit, the spicy, toasty, nutmeg allure of barrel fermentation and bottle age, and a racy freshness of malic acidity. It’s at once impeccably fresh and enticingly complex, with a long finish of soft chalk minerality. The 2009 is even more precise in its floral lift, red cherry definition and mineral detail. A triumph.

Jancis Robinson says:

‘Arguably the most reliable non-vintage champagne of them all, made by one of the very last family-owned large houses with their own grapes...Of the well-known, so-called grandes marques of champagne (no longer an official title), Bollinger, Louis Roederer, Pol Roger and Veuve Clicquot all carry a premium. But heavy Bollinger can be awkwardly angular when young, racy Pol Roger can also need a little bottle age to show its best and variable Veuve Clicquot can be downright disappointing in my view. But I have yet to experience a bottle of Louis Roederer Brut Premier that did not taste deliciously superior and ready to drink.‘