Champagne Pol Roger, Réserve, Brut

Champagne Pol Roger, Réserve, Brut

Product: 10008002767
Prices start from £53.00 per bottle (75cl). Buying options
Champagne Pol Roger, Réserve, Brut

Buying options

Description

Equal parts Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Meunier, the NV Champagne Reserve Brut has the 2019 vintage as its base, with 25% reserve wine. It pours a bright silver straw hue and is fresh on opening, with a floral perfume of white flowers, fresh pear, and fresh almond. Medium-bodied, it’s attractive and approachable, with juicy peach fruit that fills the palate, although it stays refined, with a pinpoint mousse and a clean finish. It is a lovely entry to the range to enjoy now or over the next 6-8 years, and I love this as an aperitif style—8 grams per litre of dosage.

Pol Roger is a sixth-generation family-owned business founded in 1849 focused on Champagne based in Epernay. Damien Cambres replaced former chef de cave Dominique Petit in 2018. Since 2011, they have fully moved to stainless steel fermentation and ageing. They house 9.5 kilometres of notably deep cellars at 33 meters underground and employ four full-time riddlers to turn the bottles and carefully collect sediment from them. (Only 11 exist in the region today.) This year, they completed a new facility for packaging and shipping that rests on the footprint of the historic site of the original cellars, which disastrously collapsed in 1900, destroying 1.5 million bottles. 

In August of 2022, Christian de Billy passed away at 93. He was the great-grandson of Pol Roger and was instrumental in the creation and launch of several cuvées, including the Rosé in 1961, the Blanc de Blancs vintage cuvée in 1965, and the cuvée Sir Winston Churchill in 1984 with the 1975 vintage. They own 92 hectares today and produce approximately 1.7 million bottles annually. Pol Roger is a Pinot Noir-based house that focuses on the art of blending. The wines strike a balance of refinement in the mousse without shying away from power and structure across the range.

Drink 2023 - 2031

Audrey Frick, JebDunnuck.com (November 2023)

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Critics reviews

Burghound90/100

33% Chardonnay, 33% Pinot Noir, 33% Pinot Meunier, 12 g/L

There is plenty of citrus character present on the green apple, floral and discreet spice wisps. There is good verve to the delicious and relatively rich medium-weight flavours shaped by a moderately firm, if not especially refined, mousse, all wrapped in a clean, dry and notably complex finish that is definitely drier than the stated dosage level would suggest.

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Allen Meadows, Burghound.com (October 2017)

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Jancis Robinson MW17/20

Dosage 10 g/l. Aged 36 months on lees.

Cooked apple, biscuit, savoury and long. Delicious salted-bread aftertaste. The absolute prototype of champagne, and I appreciate the generous dosage.

Drink 2021 - 2025

Richard Hemming MW, JancisRobinson.com (August 2021)

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Wine Advocate92/100

The current release of Pol Roger's NV Brut Réserve is quite dramatic, bursting with aromas of mandarin oil, honeycomb, elderflower, fresh bread and musky peach. Medium to full-bodied, fleshy and enveloping, it's generous and textural, with a rich core of fruit, lively acids and a pillowy mousse.

One of Champagne's finest houses, Pol Roger, produces among the most consistent Grandes Marques ranges. The style is full-bodied and elegantly fleshy, dominated by Pinot Noir. Only some 20% of any given year will be vintaged, as the Maison privileges its NV Brut Réserve—and indeed, while many non-vintage Bruts fluctuate in quality, Pol Roger's "white foil" bottling is both remarkably reliable and long-lived—which ranks as one of the region's best values. Today, the house ferments all its base wines in stainless steel at low temperature, followed by manual riddling.

Drink 2021 - 2035

William Kelley, Wine Advocate (March 2021)

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James Suckling92/100

Fresh Amalfi lemons, pear skins, apples, rhubarb and hints of anise on the nose. Excellent depth and flavour concentration here, with a medium body and creamy bubbles. Fruit and spice are deliciously integrated. 

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James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (July 2023)

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Decanter93/100

Richly biscuity on the nose, steamed rice, fresh pear and citrus blossom complexity. Creamy mousse dissolves into red apple peel, lemon and stone fruits, with a depth of honeyed biscuits. The Reserve NV from Pol Roger blends base wines from at least three vintages. With six months of post-disgorgement ageing, the wine is ready to enjoy now.

Drink 2021 - 2026

Sylvia Wu, Decanter.com (October 2021)

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Jeb Dunnuck91/100

Equal parts Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Meunier, the NV Champagne Reserve Brut has the 2019 vintage as its base, with 25% reserve wine. It pours a bright silver straw hue and is fresh on opening, with a floral perfume of white flowers, fresh pear, and fresh almond. Medium-bodied, it’s attractive and approachable, with juicy peach fruit that fills the palate, although it stays refined, with a pinpoint mousse and a clean finish. It is a lovely entry to the range to enjoy now or over the next 6-8 years, and I love this as an aperitif style—8 grams per litre of dosage.

Pol Roger is a sixth-generation family-owned business founded in 1849 focused on Champagne based in Epernay. Damien Cambres replaced former chef de cave Dominique Petit in 2018. Since 2011, they have fully moved to stainless steel fermentation and ageing. They house 9.5 kilometres of notably deep cellars at 33 meters underground and employ four full-time riddlers to turn the bottles and carefully collect sediment from them. (Only 11 exist in the region today.) This year, they completed a new facility for packaging and shipping that rests on the footprint of the historic site of the original cellars, which disastrously collapsed in 1900, destroying 1.5 million bottles. 

In August of 2022, Christian de Billy passed away at 93. He was the great-grandson of Pol Roger and was instrumental in the creation and launch of several cuvées, including the Rosé in 1961, the Blanc de Blancs vintage cuvée in 1965, and the cuvée Sir Winston Churchill in 1984 with the 1975 vintage. They own 92 hectares today and produce approximately 1.7 million bottles annually. Pol Roger is a Pinot Noir-based house that focuses on the art of blending. The wines strike a balance of refinement in the mousse without shying away from power and structure across the range.

Drink 2023 - 2031

Audrey Frick, JebDunnuck.com (November 2023)

Read more

About this WINE

Pol Roger

Pol Roger

Pol Roger is perhaps best known as Winston Churchill's favourite Champagne. The house remains family-owned and has a reputation for producing champagnes of finesse and elegance which age very well. Pol Roger Brut Rèserve Non-Vintage, made from equal parts of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, is consistently one of the very best on the market, largely due to the high proportion of aged reserve wines in the blend.

Pol Roger vintage wines, made from at least 60% Pinot Noir and up to 40% Chardonnay, are soft and fruit-driven in youth but, after ten years or so, develop great complexity and finesse. The Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill, launched in 1984 and made from a secret blend, is a Champagne of exquisite finesse and balance and one that rivals the very best of the region.

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Brut Champagne

Brut Champagne

Brut denotes a dry style of Champagne (less than 15 grams per litre). Most Champagne is non-vintage, produced from a blend from different years. The non-vintage blend is always based predominately on wines made from the current harvest, enriched with aged wines (their proportion and age varies by brand) from earlier harvests, which impart an additional level of complexity to the end wine. Champagnes from a single vintage are labelled with the year reference and with the description Millésimé.

Non-vintage Champagnes can improve with short-term ageing (typically two to three years), while vintages can develop over much longer periods (five to 30 years). The most exquisite and often top-priced expression of a house’s style is referred to as Prestige Cuvée. Famous examples include Louis Roederer's Cristal, Moët & Chandon's Dom Pérignon, and Pol Roger's Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill.

Recommended Producers : Krug, Billecart Salmon, Pol Roger, Bollinger, Salon, Gosset, Pierre Péters, Ruinart


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Champagne blend

Champagne blend

Which grapes are included in the blend, and their proportion, is one of the key factors determining the style of most Champagnes. Three grapes are used - Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier.

26% of vineyards in Champagne are planted with Chardonnay and it performs best on the Côtes des Blancs and on the chalk slopes south of Epernay. It is relatively simple to grow, although it buds early and thus is susceptible to spring frosts. It produces lighter, fresher wines than those from Burgundy and gives finesse, fruit and elegance to the final blend. It is the sole grape in Blancs de Blancs, which are some of the richest long-lived Champagnes produced.

Pinot Noir accounts for nearly 40% of the plantings in Champagne and lies at the heart of most blends - it gives Champagne its body, structure, strength and grip. It is planted across Champagne and particularly so in the southern Aube district.

The final component is Pinot Meunier and this constitutes nearly 35% of the plantings. Its durability and resistance to spring frosts make the Marne Valley, a notorious frost pocket, its natural home. It ripens well in poor years and produces a soft, fruity style of wine that is ideal for blending with the more assertive flavours of Pinot Noir. Producers allege that Pinot Meunier lacks ageing potential, but this does not deter Krug from including around 15% of it in their final blends.


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