Cristal, Louis Roederer 2016

The 2016 Champagne Cristal is chalky and pristine, with a crystalline nature and notes of white peach, fresh citrus blossoms, and bright salinity. Tasted for the first time last year, it captures a precise and focused energy that’s unmatched. It boasts the energy and tension of 2002 and the precision of 2008. The wet-stone minerality of fresh chalk texture is profound, opening with medium body, showing pinpoint mousse, and sustaining a weightless energy through the long finish. This is not an obvious wine on opening, but it is by far one of my favorite wines of the year. It is going to require some patience, but it is worth stashing away and should have fantastic longevity. Drink 2027-2050.

The 2016 Cristal is a taut, incisive rendition of this benchmark bottling, unwinding in the glass with youthfully reserved aromas of citrus oil, white flowers, wet stones and subtle hints of sweet, buttery pastry. Medium to full-bodied, chiseled and racy, it's almost as electric as the brilliant 2013, with serious concentration, a pure core of fruit, chalky structuring dry extract and a long, intensely mineral finish. Given its tightly wound profile, my advice is to forget it in the cellar for a few years and work on the more open, outgoing 2014 in the meantime. 2026 - 2055

Very, very concentrated and dense with some salinity and really juicy. 'We call it the Chevalier-Montrachet of Champagne because it's discreet rather than showy', according to Lécaillon. Markedly savoury, and indeed not entirely unlike modern, slightly austere white burgundy. Definite chewiness on the end and a bottle that should ideally be kept awhile. But, presumably thanks to warmer summers and organically grown vines, it's more open than Cristal used to be on release. 2027-2042.

58% Pinot Noir, 42% Chardonnay from grand cru villages. The dominant ingredient is Pinot Noir from a north-facing vineyard in Verzenay. Cristal is usually made up of 45 of 70 plots that are at least 20 years old, all fermented as single-vineyard wines and during the winter they select the best. Only 32 of these 45 plots made it into this selection because, according to chef de cave Lécaillon, 2016 was tricky because of the wet spring (as were the early 2012 and late 2013 vintages). There was lots of mildew in their organic vineyards although a beautiful August mitigated the situation. Low crop picked throughout the second half of September. Concentrated fruit. He believes that the vines were more settled into an organic protocol by 2016. 31% oaked wine. No malo, no chaptalisation. Dosage 7 g/l. There will be no Cristal 2017. The 2018 will be released in 2026.

The 2016 vintage of Cristal is composed from a blend of fifty-eight percent pinot noir and forty-two percent chardonnay. Just under a third of the vins clairs in this vintage were barrel-fermented and the wine was finished with a dosage of seven grams per liter. Chef du Cave Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon compares the classical style of the 2016 Cristal to recent classics such as 2002, 2008 and 2012. The wine is utterly refined on the nose, wafting from the glass in a constellation of peach, golden delicious apple, a hint of mirabelle, almond, brioche, a complex base of chalky soil tones, white flowers and just a whisper of oak. On the palate the wine is crisp, precise and full-bodied, with a great girdle of acidity, superb depth of pure fruit at the core, great salty soil signature and grip, elegant mousse and outstanding length and complexity on the perfectly balanced finish. Like the 2008 and 2012 were in their youth, this is a very young wine that absolutely deserves a decade in the cellar before broaching, as there is so much more here to unfold if time is given a chance to work its magic! (Drink between 2035-2085)

The 2016 Cristal is a blend of 58% Pinot Noir and 42% Chardonnay with 7 grams per liter of dosage. No malo-lactic was performed here, and 31% of the base wines were aged in French oak. The nose begins with bright red berry notes of fresh raspberries and strawberries before opening out to a complex undercurrent of saffron, white chocolate, talc, baker’s yeast, and emerging wafts of citron blossom and pear tart. The palate is very dry and spicy, not needing even a touch more sweetness thanks to the abundance of ripe berry and citrus flavors, delivering beautifully knit acidity and typically tiny, persistent bubbles. It finishes with notes of effervescent chalkiness and saffron flowers, leaving you reaching for another sip. 2027-2060

Cristal 2016 represents a return to purity and classicism for this cuvée, even seen through the lens of 2016's ripe, generous nature. It is discreet in youth, cloaking its ripeness in long, chalky, stony energy. Gentle mandarin, pale apricot and raspberry fruit sit under slowly maturing notions of floral honey and tight, smoky charm. An airy, flowing delicacy and persistence lifts this above some other expressions of this year. It's a hugely promising Cristal, likely to stand as tall as the sought-after 2012 and 2013 releases. 2029-2050