Pierre Péters "Cuvée de Réserve" Brut Blanc de Blancs Champagne

Based on the 2018 vintage, this wine includes reserves dating back to 1988. Most of the components come from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger; all grow on chalk. The wine seems to layer that chalk’s seabed heritage into beautiful richness, as it combines different parcels aged in stainless steel, oak barrels or concrete. “It reminds me of architecture,” Tina Vaughn of NYC’s The Simone said. “The smell of a building site—granite, concrete, steel beams. Very Ayn Rand.” Or is it the architecture of ancient fossilized soil, along with a softer impression, one that made me smile at the glory of Champagne. (12/2021)

Made up, half and half, of base wine from the sunny 2018 harvest, and reserve wine from Rodolphe’s Perpetual Reserve which goes back to 1988, this is one of the most consistently excellent NV wines on the market. Its current iteration is especially impressive, floral, chalky, upstanding, and very complex; the palate sharing notes of dried apricot, plum and lemon pith with more developed intimations of sour honey and patisserie. An exemplary wine with real purity and precision on the finish. (SF) (7/2021)

This elegant Champagne is powered by intense acidity, wrapping its racy frame in a cloak fashioned from the plush and creamy mousse as it carries flavors of ripe mirabelle plum and fig fruit, chopped hazelnut and preserved lemon, with an underlying tang of salinity. The lingering finish echoes the ripe fruit and mineral character. (AN) (10/2021)

Rodolphe Péters current bottling of Cuvée Réserve is from the base year of 2018, with reserve wines in the blend dating all the way back to 1988! Three quarters of the vins clairs go through malolactic and the wine was disgorged in December of 2020. All of the fruit for this bottling hails from the estate’s parcels in Mesnil-sur-Oger, Cramant, Avize and Oger. The wine delivers a refined bouquet of pear, delicious apple, fresh-baked bread, a fine base of limestone minerality and a topnote of fresh almond. On the palate the wine is young, bright and full, with a superb core of fruit, excellent mineral drive and cut, pinpoint bubbles and a long, beautifully balanced and nascently complex finish. This is a young wine and really deserves at least a few years in the cellar to allow its acids to relax a bit more and the secondary layers of complexity to emerge. It should prove to be a long-lived bottle of non-vintage and will be hitting on all cylinders if given three to five years’ worth of bottle age- though it is certainly quite tasty in its youth. (9/2021)

Based on the 2017 vintage and disgorged in May 2021, the latest release of Péters's NV Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Cuvée de Réserve continues to show very nicely. Bursting with aromas of crisp orchard fruit, honeycomb, white flowers and fresh bread, it's medium-bodied, pillowy and generous, with a refined mousse and an elegantly fleshy core of fruit. This is a fine-boned, weightless blanc de blancs that's disarmingly easy to drink. (1/2022)

The NV Brut Cuvée de Réserve Grand Cru is fabulous. A Champagne of tension and energy, the Cuvée de Réserve has real presence, not to mention tons of class. Citrus, jasmine, mint and crushed rocks are some of the many nuances that race out of the glass. In this release, the Cuvée de Réserve has a light tropical quality that is both exotic and hugely appealing. Dosage is 7 grams per liter. Impressive. (AG) (11/2021)