1 Rue Winston Churchill, Épernay: Maison Pol Roger
Is This The Only Address in the World Where 100-Year-Old Champagne Astonishes! Many Champagne lovers will tell you they prefer bottles no older than 20 or 25 years. I understand that completely. When I arrive home, or open Champagne for friends, I usually want energy, drive and freshness and that most often comes from younger Champagne in their 1st and 2nd decade.
But every so often, at one address in Épernay, the impossible seems to happen.
At 1 Rue Winston Churchill, the home of Maison Pol Roger, Champagne more than a century old can still feel alive. Not merely interesting. Not merely historic. Alive and with a story to tell.
Pol Roger made his first wine sale in January 1849, and the house remains family-owned today, managed by descendants of its founder. By the time his sons Maurice and Georges were leading the business (1900 to 1918) they had made wines that no one could have imagined would still be giving pleasure more than a century later. The 1911 vintage is one of them.
It is extraordinarily rare to taste Champagne over 40 years old that still feels faithful to the original wine, rather than simply becoming a fragile relic of oxidation. With Champagne, many forces are working against survival. A young bottle begins life around 5.5 to 6 bars of pressure, roughly three times the pressure of a car tyre, and comparable to the pressure experienced 50 metres underwater. Over time, that pressure gradually falls as carbon dioxide slowly escapes through the cork.
And cork is never perfectly predictable. Cork oak, Quercus suber, is tree bark, and therefore variable by nature. Each closure brings its own tiny differences in density, elasticity and seal. In old Champagne, that variability becomes part of the story: one bottle can be glorious, another more evolved.
Research published in 2023 by Gérard Liger-Belair at the University of Reims now offers scientific insight into something long understood in the cellars of Pol Roger: under ideal cellar conditions, Champagne can retain astonishing vitality for far longer than most people imagine, especially in magnum format. Even century-old bottles can still feel remarkably alive.
VINOTHEQUE AT MAISON POL ROGER
The vinothèque at Pol Roger is among the most remarkable in Champagne, containing meticulously preserved bottles stretching back well over a century, including half-bottles from 1880 and magnums from 1892. In recent years, the Maison has adopted an approach of systematically disgorging these historic bottles before returning them to the vinothèque for long-term ageing and eventual release. During major construction works beginning in 2020, the entire collection was temporarily relocated and every bottle individually inspected, with selected wines re-corked where necessary, an extraordinary undertaking designed to safeguard the condition of these rare bottles for decades to come.
Cellar Collapse in 1900 resulting in the loss of 1.5 million bottles
Pol Roger 1973 — 18.5/20 – Disgorged: June 2013
Served Blind. A rich golden amber colour with very gentle bubbles. Clearly 30 + years old; bundles of dried citrus fruits, lime and bitter orange, with wafts of chocolate and a savoury edge. Plenty of acidity holds it together. It has the elements of a classic year: ripeness, bright acids and purity. I was well off, thinking it might be 1988. Amazing that although the bubbles are very gentle, the taste profile feels far younger than expected.
“The 1973 vintage is considered one of the strongest years of the 1970s, with ripeness from a warm August and September, yet good retained acidity.”
Pol Roger 1921 — 19.5/20 — Disgorged: June 2013
Served Blind. Darker amber-gold than the 1973, with green tinges. Full, rich and unctuous, with tropical notes, dried mango, roasted pistachio and bitter orange. The palate is silky and textural, with candied fruit lingering mixed with lanolin & hint of forest floor. The bubbles are very much in the background, but there is still freshness and a saline edge. Wow. I guessed somewhere in the 1950s.
“The 1921 vintage was tiny yielding, but exceptionally concentrated; April frosts dramatically reduced the crop, while the summer was notably dry and hot. Pol 2021 is legendary & considered wine of the vintage.”
Pol Roger 1911, 37.5cl — 18/20 — Disgorged January 2001
Served Blind. The intensity surprised me. I knew only that it was a small bottle. It was stunning: an unmistakable woolly, lanolin character, some white mushroom, but only as a minor distraction, with intense stone fruit, spicy citrus, charred almond and wet walnut. A half bottle one hundred and fifteen years old and still drinking well!
The Label Archive at Pol Roger
Pol Roger Reserve 1911, 37.5cl & 75cl
Old Champagne often gives the impression that the fruit has become super ripe, almost like dripping in sweet juice, the flavours having concentrated over time. The sweetness felt high, yet Damian Cambres (Chef de cave) told us analysis of these older bottles always show dosage of around 12–14 g/L.
A small technical moment: with extreme age, Champagne can develop a fascinating illusion of sweetness. Amino acids and long lees-derived autolytic compounds broaden the palate over decades, allowing wines of modest sugar levels to feel remarkably rich, textural and complete.
Pol Roger 1911, 75cl — 18.5/20 – Disgorged: Original Disgorgement
Served Blind. Full dried citrus fruits again, with bundles of dried stone fruit. I tried to ignore the white mushroom, because the mouthfeel and texture were so soft, velvety and generous. There was a great weight of fruit on the palate, with richness and enormous textural joy. I wasn’t expecting Lapsang Souchong tea, but there it was, somewhere between charcuterie, smoked tea and that depth of old Champagne. An absolute delight. Drink it now, and whenever you can!
“Both 75cl bottles were re-corked in December 2000. Given their age, it is likely that a previous re-corking had already taken place.”
Pol Roger 1911, 75cl — 2nd bottle — 17.5/20 — Disgorged: Original Disgorgement
Served Blind. Immediately more herbal, with a minty eucalyptus note and added tannin. Much of the fruit joy of the first bottle remained, especially the delicious dried fruit, but this bottle had moved in a more herbal direction. Bottle variation at this age is not surprising. I preferred the first bottle.
“1911 was considered a very good year, after a dry growing season the bunches were light in weight and hence a tiny average yield of 1,600 kg/ha of concentrated flavour.”
Extreme bottle age slowly transforms Champagne’s aromatic chemistry, evolving youthful fruit compounds into the haunting aromatics, sometimes a hint herbal, tea-like and sometimes eucalyptus notes found only in the world’s oldest bottles.
To taste these majestic bottles is an enormous privilege. They are not simply old Champagnes; they are living witnesses to the endurance of a house, a cellar, a style and an amazing time capsule we are so lucky to be able to taste these jewels from Pol Roger’s cellar. At Pol Roger, time does not merely pass. Sometimes, astonishingly, it sparkles.
Meet Polly, the Pol Roger Land Rover!
