| Region | |
|---|---|
| Subregion | France > Champagne |
| Colour | White |
| Type | Sparkling |
The NV Collection 244 is gorgeous. Bright and focused, with a lovely cut, the 244 is immediately captivating. Dried pear, chamomile, herbs, mint and crushed rocks abound. Based on the 2019 vintage with 36% perpetual reserve wines from vintages 2012-2018, this vibrant, wonderfully crystalline Champagne impresses from beginning to end. Saline notes extend the finish effortlessly. Dosage is 7 grams per liter. (Drink between 2023-2030)
Magnums of the Collection 244 have just been released, and like the bottles this iteration from Roederer is a wine typical of the estate's finesse and precision. Based on the outstanding 2019 vintage, comprising 54% of the wine, with oak aged reserve wines going back to 2012 forming 10% of the blend and a perpetual reserve from 2012-2018 making up the remainder. Pale in colour with a youthful and vibrant nose of white flowers, white pear and clean, vibrant citrus, this is a perfumed, delicate wine. The palate leads with bright, zesty fruit and fine acidity matched by a persistent mousse. The ripe yet cool fruit has a lightly sweet edge, making this supple and fruity. A wine that leans on its pristine, high integrity blossom-like fruit, the large formats bring added creaminess to the mousse and a little more - though still gentle - savoury complexity from the lees. Drink now, or over the coming decade.
The brand new Louis Roederer “Collection 244” non-vintage Brut is from the outstanding base year of 2019. This was a ripe year (as was also the case with both 2018 and 2020), but one that has produced truly exceptional wines thus far and looks likely to be eventually considered a great vintage year when those bottlings are released down the road. The cépages of the Collection 244 is forty-one percent chardonnay, thirty-three percent pinot noir and twenty-six percent pinot meunier. Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon notes that the slightly higher percentage of pinot meunier in the blend this year was from cooler Montagne de Reims sites to keep the alcohol a bit lower in this hot summer. Fifteen percent of the vins clairs were barrel-fermented, with only thirty-five percent of the still wines having gone through malolactic fermentation for the 244. The wine was disgorged in January of 2022 and finished with a dosage of seven grams per liter. It offers up a beautifully refined nose of apple, white peach, brioche, fresh almond, chalky soil tones, just a whisper of oak, gentle smokiness and a lovely, delicate topnote of meunier floral tones. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and still quite youthful, with a fine spine of acidity, excellent focus and cut, a lovely core of fruit, fine mineral drive and grip, refined mousse and impeccable balance on the long and nascently complex finish. Like all of the Collection Series releases from Louis Roederer, the 244 is built to age long and gracefully and this is still very early days for this excellent wine. I would opt to tuck it away in the cellar for five or six years and really let it come into its own. Fine, fine juice. (Drink between 2024-2060)
The first impression is as invigorating as a sea breeze. I love the interplay of mirabelle, grapefruit and lychee fruit with minty freshness and waxiness from lees contact. And all this is welded to a beautifully proportioned palate with plenty of structure, the acidity bright and the mousse animating. Very salty finish that pulls you back for more. A cuvee of 41% chardonnay, 33% pinot noir and 26% pinot meunier. Of these, 15% fermented in oak and 85% in stainless steel. The final blend contained 36% reserve perpetual and 10% reserve wines of the 2012 - 2018 vintage from oak. The dosage is 7 g/l. Drink or hold.
The powerful, ripe side of 2019 is on shown here, with white peach and mandarin flavours held in place by the toasty, savoury citrus oil snap of the perpetual reserve. Still feels youthful and fragrant with juicy pear, blossom and almond notes. Will show even better with another six months. 41% Chardonnay, 33% Pinot Noir and 26% Meunier. 54% from the 2019 base vintage, with 36% perpetual reserve and 10% reserve wines in oak. Drink 2023-2028.
