"If I don't make mistakes, I never learn." Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon's words are hardly original but still they took me by surprise. I don't think of the cellar master of Champagne Louis Roederer as one who makes mistakes, least of all with Cristal, which is what he was talking about, as he hosted (virtually) the launch of the 2014 vintage. To be clear, he didn't catalogue actual mistakes or cite any particular vintage of Cristal. The comment came in the context of the percenta

If Louis Roederer Cristal 2008 was "the Cristal of Cristals", in the memorable words of chef de cave Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon at the launch of the first two Vinothèque vintages in 2018, what does that make the 2013 he is now introducing? "2008-plus". A little later he describes it as "the Cristal of Cristalsss" and "50 per cent chalk, 50 per cent sunshine", whereas 2012, he says, was a little more on the sunshine side and 2008 was more on the soil [chalk] side. The 2013 is cer

The tasting of the first two vintages, 1995 and 1996, of Roederer's ultrarare Cristal Vinothèque When Louis Roederer released the first vintage of Cristal Vinothèque in September last year, the 1995, there was a launch for the press in France, but no tasting in the UK. When you know that the entire UK allocation is 48 bottles of the white (out of a grand total of 400) and 18 bottles of the rosé, you can see why. On Tuesday, for the launch of the 1996 (500 bottles of white pro

The occasion was a dinner at the Hotel Particulier in Reims, the Roederer family home, in May 2016, hosted by Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, winemaker and executive vice president of Champagne Louis Roederer. Dinner, thank goodness, means drinking not just tasting. For the full menu, see below. For more on the Roederer philosophy and practice, see my blog The Golden Age of Champagne Roederer Cristal 2009 Disgorged October 2015. Dosage 8g/l. 60% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay. To be rel

Vins Clairs from the great 2015 vintage, some of which will go into Cristal in the current, new Golden Age of Champagne Rather a quaint title don’t you think, ‘The Golden Age of Champagne’? Attention grabbing, too, I hope of course, but – and sorry if this comes as a disappointment – L’Age d’Or isn’t now. Or, at least, the vintages we’re drinking now are not from what one of Champagne’s most widely admired and respected winemakers, Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, calls Champagne’s g