Champagne Roederer "Cristal" 2015

PRESENTATION OF THE HOUSE LOUIS ROEDERER
AND ALL ITS WINES IN STOCK

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Champagne Roederer "Cristal" 2015

RVF Guide to the Best Wines of France 2025 (Sept. 2024): 94/100. Cristal 2015 remains slightly marked by the root and vegetal notes of the vintage. The wine showcases a broad and ultimately creamy palate, with the expected depth. While it retains beautiful stature, we find it slightly below the 2014.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate (William Kelley, April 2023): 95+/100. If the 2014 vintage was especially open and demonstrative, the 2015 Cristal is going to require more patience. Unwinding in the glass with aromas of citrus oil, crisp stone fruits, white flowers, crushed mint and subtle hints of buttery pastry, it's medium to full-bodied, deep and layered, with a deep, concentrated and rather introverted core of fruit framed by chalky extract and animated by a pretty pinpoint mousse. This is a serious, vinous Champagne that has considerable substance to age and may well evolve along the lines of the lovely 1985. Drink date 2027-2050.

Technical sheet written by the domaine:


A RADIANT CRISTAL
It is a radiant Cristal that is emerging, already so charming yet so promising. Of the 45 historical plots of the Domaine Cristal, only 39 were selected that year, those whose grapes reflected the identity of this unique wine: pure fruit, superior finesse, and a refined length.

This fidelity to the soil, Cristal owes to its permanence; it is a wine that is inscribed in duration, that of the seasons, of maturation, of transmission, and of research. A quest for excellence, purity, and harmony: Cristal resonates in unison with its terroir and echoes it perfectly. It is then up to the Chef de Caves to adjust its resonances, to assign it the most faithful aging that makes it vibrate at the highest note.


A WINE OF SOILS
The identity of Cristal is unique and distinct in the history of great Champagne wines. It is a wine of soils and depth, a wine of earth turned towards the light, reaching towards the sky and seemingly almost touching it. Cristal continually reveals, as it ages, different facets of its work and personality.
Each new vintage always reveals the character of Cristal, each time through a different prism, like a kaleidoscope of flavors and textures.

A CRISTAL OF GREAT VIBRATION
For the first time since 2002, this 2015 vintage comes from all 45 plots over twenty years old, thus eligible to enter the Cristal blend. This continental year with a concentrated profile made this exception and rarity possible, and it is now magical to see the entire domaine reflecting the identity of this unique wine: pure fruit, superior finesse, and a refined length.
This fidelity to the soil, Cristal owes to its permanence; it is a wine that is inscribed in duration, that of the seasons, of maturation, of transmission, and of research.

VINTAGE
2015 was a hot and sunny year, marked by episodes of heat and drought, relieved by the life-giving rains of late summer that allowed the grapes to retain all their freshness. These climatic characteristics forged juicy, ripe, and concentrated grapes, perfectly balanced. Cristal 2015 fully benefits from this contrasting weather, with a pronounced chalky temperament, capturing more than ever the vibration of its soils; a welcome paradox!
Perfectly fitting into the continental trend of the decade, the 2015 vintage has thus more than ever produced ripe and structured wines, crowned with an insolent freshness guided by its white soils.
The purity of the chalk has emerged, revealed by the gentle and virtuous viticultural practices of the House, offering an ideal symbiosis between maturity and freshness.

MAIN CRUS:
Verzenay, Verzy, Beaumont-sur-Vesle, Ay, Avize, Mesnil-sur-Oger, Cramant

TASTING COMMENTS:
A CALCAREOUS TEMPERAMENT
A perfect union of softness and concentration, paired with a masterful maturity, Cristal 2015 delivers intense and delicious aromas assured of superb energy, a magical vibration. It is an eternal champagne with a calcareous temperament, carried by its soils, freed from the solar character of the vintage.
Initially on the nose, the echoes of yellow fruits, roasted almond, and the harvest of Chardonnay, combined with the juicy red fruits of Pinot Noir. Then comes the great energy of the structure, its vibrational intensity that transforms into a gentle caress, a silky texture where fine flavors of candied citrus and iodized spices emerge.
The calcareous character of the vintage thus bursts forth in a tonic, vertical effervescence, with persistent, precise, and chiseled freshness. The finish, supported by slightly woody, sapid, and saline notes, gives the whole an ultimate sensation of delicacy and concentration. Cristal 2015 remains of sovereign measure and balance, resonating more with the calcareous dimension of its soils than with the solar character of the vintage. Always fully Cristal, intensely 2015, with immense aging potential….