Louis Roederer "Brut Premier" Champagne

42% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay, 18% Meunier from 55% estate vineyards; 16% fermented and matured in oak casks; 30% malolactic. The rise and evolution of this cuvée over the past 15 years, and particularly since the construction of its dedicated facility in 2007, has showed no sign of slowing today, as Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon continues his fanatical regime of experimenting, tweaking and refining every detail. I’ve long adored Brut Premier, a grand pinnacle and dependable bargain in the non-vintage Champagne stakes. (TS) (8/2020)

The new release of Brut Premier is from the base year of 2012 and was disgorged in the spring of 2016, after spending three years aging on its fine lees. The wine is its customary blend of forty percent each of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and twenty percent Pinot Meunier. The bouquet wafts from the glass in a complex and still youthful blend of apple, white peach, gentle leesiness, patissière, lovely soil tones and a smoky topnote. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, crisp and beautifully balanced, with excellent mid-palate depth, refined mousse, excellent focus and grip and a long, poised and complex finish. This will be even better with some bottle age and is a fine iteration of this consistently excellent cuvée. (Drink between 2017-2037) (5/2017)

The nose is super fresh and has plenty of ripe strawberries, along with lemons and grapefruit. The palate has a tense, fresh, mineral-salt core and then layers of fleshier, supple fruit. All you want in a great NV! This is 75 per cent from the cooler 2013 harvest, the balance made up of reserve wines, ten per cent of which is much older material. Drink or hold. (9/2018)

This is a distinctly red-fruited release of Brut Premier, the only Roederer wine that consistently includes some softer lots taken through malolactic conversion. It tastes like chalk infused with the sweet juice of fraises des bois, deepening to raspberries, lasting on spice. There’s tension to the wine so it finishes clean, but it’s also 'fun to drink,' as one taster noted, 'with the dosage the wine needed.' (12/2019)

Always a fine nonvintage cuvée, this richly textured Champagne has weight to go with the wine’s structured fruitiness. White fruits are laced with lime juice and this bottling has a hint of age in its nutty background. (RV) (12/2020)

Based on the 2013 vintage (75%) and complemented with 25% reserve wines going back to 2006, Roederer's NV Brut Premier (2013) has a straw yellow color and offers lovely intensity and finesse on the nose, displaying brioche and honey notes along with ripe white fruit and flowery aromas. Round and fresh on the beautifully balanced palate and with a refreshing citrus flavor in the clear, crisp and pure finish, this is a very elegant, vital and stimulating cuvée made of 35% Pinot Noir, 38% Chardonnay and 28% Pinot Meunier. According to Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, 2013 was a very good vintage for Pinot Noir. '2013 was a late harvest. We picked the grapes only in October,' explained Lécaillon, who used 55% own grapes for the Brut Premier. 'In wet years, the percentage of Meunier is always higher because Meunier doesn't need to be super ripe. I am happy with 9.5% alcohol here because I need the clear and crisp freshness to balance the vinosity of Pinot.' It is the wine of the purchased, less ripe grapes from the Marne Valley that undergoes the process of malolactic fermentation (in total: 40%), Lécaillon said, and he never sends Chardonnay into the second (malolactic) fermentation in order to avoid the butterscotch flavors. To make a long story short: Roederer's NV Brut Premier is a classic aperitif and gastronomic wine that can be served everywhere and anytime. Tasted in Reims in May 2018. (SR) (6/2018)

A bright and lacy Champagne, in an aperitif style, with citronella and smoke aromas to the rich flavors of crushed currant, lemon pastry cream and toast. Minerally finish. Drink now through 2021. (AN) (11/2018)

Pungent and fine – goes straight up the nose! Great balance and completeness. Not sweet but sweet-er. Good texture and unobjectionable. Not the tightest textured but lots of fun. 16.5/20 points. (JR) (6/2018)

From the makers of Cristal, this is a rich and toasty-styled Champagne. Roederer grows two-thirds of the fruit for this wine their own extensive 500-acre estate. Their vineyards are spread throughout the Champagne region with holdings in the Côtes de Blancs, Valley of the Marne and Montagne de Reims. The Brut Premier comes only from Grand and Premier cru sites, and does not go through malolactic fermentation.