Cristal Rosé, Louis Roederer 2013

A candidate for wine-of-the-vintage honors in Champagne, Roederer's 2013 Cristal Rosé is showing brilliantly, unfurling in the glass with notes of crisp orchard fruit, white flowers, red berries, stone fruit, freshly baked bread and tangerine oil. Full-bodied, layered and multidimensional, the vintage's bright girdling acids are amply cloaked in exuberant, expressive and notably concentrated fruit; so while this Cristal is as tensile and age-worthy as one would expect, it's also impressively fleshy and generous given the year. Concluding with an intensely sapid finish, the 2013 isn't as overtly structured as the muscular, tightly wound 2012: rather, it's the 2013's alliance of cut and flesh, precision and charm that's so compelling this year. This is another banner vintage for what I consider the reigning champion of the region's tête de cuvée bottlings, and it will be worth an effort to acquire.

The 2013 Cristal Rosé from Louis Roederer is one of the most complete wines to be found in Champagne in this vintage, so utterly pure and precise that I would run the risk of exhausting superlatives trying to express its clarity. Displaying a pale hue, it soars from the glass with a bouquet of kaleidoscopic complexity, featuring notes of tangerine zest, raspberry and rose petals mingling with peeled almonds and spices. Enjoyed from magnum, disgorged in February 2024, the wine’s persistent palate offers a bright, vibrant core of fruit, refined mousse and fine-boned structure, with racy and fresh acidity and a long, chalky finish. “With 2013, I was confident from day one, which was not the case with 2008,” recalls Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon, and the result in the glass precludes any argument about it—the 2013 Cristal Rosé is a wine that’s structurally complete, deep and multifaceted, even more spectacular than the white 2013 Cristal. When I asked William Kelley why he gave 99 points to 2013 if he rated the 2008 Cristal Rosé with 100, he for a moment insisted to me that it was the other way around. Drink 2026-2053.

Aromas of strawberry, iron, orange peel and brioche follow through to a full body with gorgeous fruit and sweet tannins that layer the wine. Strawberry-patisserie undertones. Rather juicy and chewy with very round, fine tannins. Savory, flavorful and lightly spicy. Caressing finish with lots of fruity flavor and dryness. Drink now or hold.

The 2013 Louis Roederer Cristal Rosé is composed of a blend this year of fifty-five percent pinot noir and forty-five percent chardonnay, with all of the pinot hailing from the village of Aÿ and the chardonnay from Avize and Mesnil-sur-Oger. Twenty percent of the vins clairs were barrel-fermented for this vintage of Cristal Rosé and the wine received a dosage of seven grams per liter. The bouquet is pure and very precise, wafting from the glass in a youthful blend of white peach, strawberry, rye bread, a beautiful base of chalky soil tones, delicate floral tones and a gently spicy topnote. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied and youthfully complex, with a lovely spine of acidity, great focus and grip, supremely elegant mousse and a very long, racy and seamlessly balanced finish. This seems a touch more reserved out of the blocks than the regular 2013 Cristal and will demand a bit more bottle age before it starts to drink with generosity, but once it blossoms, it will be brilliant and extremely long-lived. Drink between 2026-2065

Aromas of strawberry, iron, orange peel and brioche follow through to a full body with gorgeous fruit and sweet tannins that layer the wine. Strawberry-patisserie undertones. Rather juicy and chewy with very round, fine tannins. Savory, flavorful and lightly spicy. Caressing finish with lots of fruity flavor and dryness. Drink now or hold.