‘Ok Sara, you and Peter team up and start picking this row,’ bellowed Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, Louis Roederer’s chef de caves, as I wiped away the sweat that was beginning to stream down my face.
It was 10am in Aӱ, in Champagne’s Grande Vallée, and already the heat was soaring to 30 degrees. Vintage 2022 had shaped up to be an unusually warm year where the age-old fight for ripeness was replaced by sunny days and almost no rain, leading to an earlier than average harvest of fruitful health and abundance.
‘Honestly, these are perfect bunches – it’s the best I have ever seen,’ said Lécaillon who joined the family-owned Roederer Group in the early 1990s, before taking over as chef de caves in 1999. Where others I’d spoken to were concerned about maintaining acidity and freshness, Lécaillon couldn’t have been more relaxed. Today, he’s in a sweet spot, following two decades of radical viticultural improvements that he playfully refers to as haute couture farming. His vineyards, more than 240 hectares of them, are some of the region’s best, located in grand and premier cru territory to which an organic or biodynamic hand has been applied. It makes them among the most resilient against the vagaries of climate change, producing fruit of greater phenolic ripeness, but also freshness, which has been especially important for Roederer’s flagship, Cristal.
Secateurs in hand I ascended the gentle south-facing slope of ‘La Villers’, one of Roederer’s prized parcels, with my harvest buddy, American wine writer and presenter, Peter Liem. We were here for a two-day #CRPC (Cristal Rosé Picking Club) experience - an invitation-only (if not slightly tongue in cheek) gathering of international media.
Hallowed ground in Aӱ is where pinot noir has been sourced for Louis Roederer’s most exclusive champagne, Cristal Rosé, since its creation in 1974. Here, in Champagne’s historic cradle lies some of the finest grand cru villages, where the greatest of great champagnes are birthed by the Maisons – Dom Pérignon Rosé and Perrier-Jouët Belle Époque, for example. The fabled wines from this area were once coveted by the Popes and Kings of France and offer ripe fruit character and textured elegance, all within the finely chiseled framework of chalk terroir.
‘There is a softness and deliciousness here,’ said Lécaillon, looking almost biblical, surrounded by the silence of his Cristal disciples. ‘It provides a beautiful balance of fruit and structure that is not heavy and not light. It’s a magical area.’
In the land of Champagne giants, Cristal Rosé stands tall, the culmination of Louis Roederer’s long-documented path to organics, and expression of style, which has always taken its cue from chalk. It may be extraordinary to grow black-skinned grapes on such land, but this is Champagne, and Cristal is no ordinary wine.
‘We grow pinot on chardonnay soil,’ smiles Lécaillon kicking about the chalk-flecked dirt beneath his boots. ‘But this is Cristal Rosé, it’s a wine of soil and not climate.’
Across Roederer’s substantial vineyard holdings, there are forty-five parcels dedicated to Cristal and just three to Cristal Rosé, reinforcing its exclusivity by design. They are all chosen for their balanced contribution to the blend, but with an underlying profile of chalk. Some are historic to the Maison, acquired with the good foresight of its founding fathers in the 1830s and contributed to the debut of Cristal in 1876, which was made exclusively for the Russian Tsar, Alexander II. Cristal Rosé came almost 100 years later, in 1974, a stroke of genius by Jean-Claude Rouzaud, the Maison’s modern-day patriarch, using old-vine pinot noir from the finest sites in Aӱ. It essentially builds upon the architecture of the original Cristal by offering a plusher texture and deeper concentration.
Lécaillon is particularly passionate about Cristal Rosé. In 2007, it became his first biodynamically farmed ‘baby’, which was also the first for a prestige champagne. Pinot noir plays a critical role which is why he divides La Villers into two areas, between organic and biodynamic methods of viticulture, so he can adapt to the vagaries of each season.
I hand harvested the organic plot, a day later than the biodynamic, in a ‘perfect year’, according to Lécaillon, thanks to the relatively warm and dry conditions. Lower yields, just 7,000kg – 8,000kg per hectare (where the industry averages much more than 10,000kg), push concentration far, due in part to a rigorous green harvesting regime which sees fruit potential halved. The berries were deliciously ripe with soft and sweet tannins but also fresh and crisp.
Pinot noir makes up fifty-five percent of Cristal Rosé’s ultimate blend, but its mastery comes from the unusual ‘infusion’ technique – essentially a twist on saignée – which strikes a chord between tannin, fruit and chalk. Once received at the pressoir, fruit is immediately sorted and de-stemmed before a long five-to-ten-day cold soak in sealed tanks. Skins burst, releasing aromatics and colour but without harsh tannins, which is all important to the elegance of the wine. Following maceration, pinot juices are drawn off, without pressing, to which chardonnay juices are added from Cristal Rosé’s other prized parcels in the Côte des Blancs, ‘Pierre Vaudon’ in Avize and ‘Montmartin’ in Le Mesnil. At this point, pinot noir and chardonnay ‘infuse’ by way of co-fermentation which is high-risk because the outcome cannot always be certain. By all accounts, the process is unique in Champagne, and contributes to the other-worldly textural luxury of Cristal Rosé.
‘This is craftsmanship, a permanent improvement in the pursuit of taste,’ Lécaillon continuously emphasises, and it is. For years, I have observed him consumed by the idea of perfection in this process that has elevated Cristal Rosé to mesospheric acclaim.
A Liquid Lunch at Louis Roederer's Family Estate in Aӱ
Lunch at Louis Roederer's pressoir and family home in Aӱ included a rare vertical of Cristal Rosé sharing similarities to the 2022 vintage.
Cristal Rosé 2002 (magnum) was a little shy at first, only to reveal red fruit character which continued to complex into smoky notes. Mouth-filling and with a weighty structure, this will unfurl in years to come. Cristal Rosé Vinotéque 1996 (magnum) is a late disgorged champagne adding extra freshness to the already high acidity levels of 1996. This one has moved into some delicious umami territory whilst silky, saline and concentrated on the palate.
