Vinous Icons: Roederer – Four Decades of Cristal & Cristal Rosé

BY ANTONIO GALLONI | NOVEMBER 21, 2024

This retrospective tasting of Cristal and Cristal Rosé at Le Bernardin during the inaugural edition of Vinous Icons was a fabulous opportunity to taste a series of reference point vintages paired with Eric Ripert’s dazzling cuisine. Could there be a better way to spend a Friday afternoon? I think not.

Although pretty much a lifelong fan of the wines, I started reviewing Champagne formally in 2008. Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon was the first Chef de Cave I tasted within my new beat. One rainy fall Saturday morning we met in New York City for a vertical of Cristal back to 1982. It was an incredible tasting, but not my first experience with older Cristals. A few years before that I tasted the 1979 in a flight of all the great Champagnes of that vintage. That’s when I became seriously hooked.

In the years that followed, annual visits led me to conclude that Champagne Louis Roederer was slowly reinventing itself, taking the innovative spirit of the grower Champagne movement and bringing the best of those concepts to one of Champagne’s most elite grand marques. The biggest changes were in farming. I had a chance to follow see that evolution firsthand. Vin clair tastings included comparisons of wines from the same vineyard in sections farmed conventionally versus organically. In time, those tastings developed into comparisons of wines from the same vineyards, but from organic biodynamic parcels. Fast forward to today. Roederer farms more vineyards biodynamically than any house in Champagne, small or large, including all of the parcels that are used in Cristal and Cristal Rosé.

The range also expanded meaningfully. Roederer added two Brut Nature Champagnes, introduced a Vinothèque program, launched two Coteaux Champenois and released Collection, a modern-day interpretation of what used to be Brut Premier. That's an enormous amount of change in a relatively short time, but also illustrative of the spirit of innovation Lécaillon has brought to the maison. Readers will find extensive information on Lécaillon’s illustrious career and technical details on how Cristal and Cristal Rosé are made in the articles linked below.

With Aldo Sohm, Le Bernardin's longtime Wine Director (left), and Roederer Chef de Cave Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon (center).

For this lunch, we decided to taste Cristal and Cristal Rosé side-by-side across several of the most important vintages of the last 20 years or so, something that is rarely done because pairing food for both wines at the same time is so challenging. The only exception was the last flight, as the wines were from different vintages. We opened the wines about an hour prior to lunch. I tasted through each bottle with Aldo Sohm, Le Bernardin’s longtime Wine Director. Chef/Owner Eric Ripert and his team prepared a brilliant menu. I have worked with many chefs and sommeliers on our events, but have rarely, if ever, seen this much attention to food and pairings. That time paid off, as the pairings were sublime.