Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV Champagne 75cl

Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV is a culmination of wine from eight different harvests, utilizing all three Champagne grape varieties from more than forty different plots. The percentage of Louis Roederer reserve wines (matured in oak casks for two to ten years) included in Brut Premier varies, but can be up to a third of the final blend. Brut Premier is matured for three years in the cellar and rested for six months after disgorgement to perfect maturity. As a consequence of its complex blend of eight different vintages, Brut Premier is the embodiment of the Louis Roederer style, merging all the fruitiness and freshness of youth with the vinosity of a fully mature wine.

Technical Information:
Vineyards: 100% Grand & Premier Cru
Grape Varieties: 40% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay, 20% Pinot Meunier
Reserve Wine: 30%
Ageing: 3 years on the lees
Current base vintage: 2013
Disgorged: Spring 2017
Dosage: 10 g/l

Tasting Note: Fine bubbles and a nose of fresh fruit and hawthorn. The inclusion of reserve wines gives it the complexity and roundness characteristic of Louis Roederer champagnes. Smooth, complex palate mingling flavours of apple and pear with blackberries, raspberries and cherries. This is a structured and elegantly mature wine, lively on the mouth with a smooth palate.

Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV comes in lightweight antique-coloured bottles that filter out nearly 100 percent of light.

As the largest independent family-managed Champagne producer, Louis Roederer rank amongst the region's absolute finest. Established in 1776, the House is currently managed by seventh generation family member Frédéric Rouzaud alongside long-time Chef de Cave and Champagne legend Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon. Today, Champagne Louis Roederer own an astounding 240 hectares of vineyards in the very best locations that cover two-thirds of their grape requirements and are pioneers in biodynamic farming, having converted a total of 78-hecatres to accommodate production using biodynamic methods.

Top quality grapes are the cornerstone of Roederer's style and account for their characteristic purity and elegance. Their portfolio begins with Brut Premier, one of Champagne's most seductive non-vintage cuvées and ends with Cristal, perhaps the world's most recognised prestige cuvée champagne. Created in 1876 for Tsar Alexander II of Russia, the iconic Cristal is the essence of Roederer, matched only in decadence and luxury by its pink equivalent, Cristal Rosé. By 2020, the House estimates that all Cristal plots will be cultivated biodynamically and the long-term plan is to convert all 240 hectares.

Cellar Master: Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon
Winery Location: Reims | Champagne, France
Champagne Region: Montagne de Reims
Annual Production (bottles): 3,000,000

The Busy Wine Lover's Guide to Louis Roederer wine-searcher.com, 18th December 2014

Vintage Overviews Grand & Premier Crus Explained

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Established in 1776, Louis Roederer is one of the last great independent family-run Champagne houses. Today it is managed by CEO Frédéric Rouzaud, who is the seventh generation of the Roederer family. His right hand-man, Chef de Cave Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon has been creating stunning wines at Roederer since 1999. As a winemaker, Jean-Baptiste is very proud of his craft and declares that at Roederer “we don’t blend, we combine”, adding: “I love art, and like a great painter we add colour rather than blending it”.

Being in the enviable position of owning the majority of their own vineyards, Roederer have the capacity to supply 70% of the grapes required to produce their non-vintage champagnes and 100% for their vintage champagnes, an extreme rarity in the region today. Experimentation has led them to create and manage biodynamic vineyards for nearly ten years and they are now the largest biodynamic vineyard owners in Champagne. Although they are not looking to get certification, the resulting wines have produced some amazing flavours and created some wonderful additions to the resultant blends.

From the beginning Louis Roederer wanted to create the best champagne he could and felt that the way to do that was to own his vineyards, and not, like most other Houses, buy in grapes from growers. This strategy led him to acquire some of the finest land in the region and today it amounts to some 240 hectares of Grand and Premier Cru vineyards in the Marne. His belief that great wine depends on the quality of the soil is still part of their philosophy today.

Each small parcel is hand-picked and pressed on the harvest site, then vinified separately so as to keep the true character intact. Each individual lot is then tasted several times before blending, when they are chosen for their unique characters to create the perfect Roederer style.

In the 1870s, Louis Roederer began exporting his wines to the USA and Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The Tsar was a suspicious man and believed his enemies might try to tamper with his beloved champagne to get rid of him. He thought that the traditional Champagne bottle with the punt at the bottom could perhaps conceal a bomb and the glass being so dark could camouflage the addition of poison. So, in 1876, the very first prestige cuvée champagne was created exclusively for the Tsar and the iconic Cristal was born. Placed in a unique bottle with a flat base made from clear crystal, the Tsar was happy that bombs and poison would not come between him and the enjoyment of his favourite tipple.

Cristal is now not just for the Tsar of Russia but little has changed in terms of how it is produced. Jean-Baptiste only creates Cristal from the best vintages and therefore it is not created every year and when it is, production is tiny. The blend is usually 55% Pinot Noir and 45% Chardonnay from only the best rated sites of Louis Roederer’s vineyards. Cristal is released after six years ageing in the Reims cellars and is the benchmark for luxury champagnes.

For everyday drinking, Louis Roederer Brut Premier is produced with the same care and attention to detail. The style is created by combining eight different harvests with wine from more than 40 different plots. The final blend is matured for three years in the cellar and rested for six months post-disgorgement to perfect maturity.