Tasting Notes

Fine bubbles and a nose of fresh fruit and hawthorn. The inclusion of reserve wines gives it the complexity and roundness characteristic of Louis Roederer champagnes. Smooth, complex palate mingling flavours of apple and pear with blackberries, raspberries and cherries. This is a structured and elegantly mature wine, lively on the mouth with a smooth palate.

Vineyard Information

Louis Roederer Collection 242 - a new approach. Is it justified? Lecaillon reminds us that when Brut Premier was introduced in 1986, the aim was to achieve consistency in a landscape still dominated by fertilisers, high yields and the legacy of some dreadful harvests in the 1970s. Late picking, oxidative treatment of reserve wines and generous levels of dosage were all used as a means to achieve - or to give the impression of achieving - ripeness. The house style was born of negation and necessity. 2002 is cited as the year when all this changed. Suddenly, with climate change no doubt playing its part, the struggle for ripeness was over. Now there was emphasis on site, soil and the key word changed from 'ripeness' to 'freshness'.

No longer the philosophy which Lecaillon describes as the 'corrective mechanic'; on the contrary the impulse was towards creativity and 'constant adaptation in the face of the year in question'. The non-vintage cuv