Because of the technical demands of its wines, Champagne has often been associated more with the skill of the people and technology behind the bottles than with the land itself. Yet in the 1980s, amid a period in the wine world dominated by industrialisation, a handful of quality-focused grower-producers began championing terroir-driven Champagne, laying the foundation for the nuanced, expressive wines we celebrate today. Thanks to them, the names of Champagne’s grands crus are firmly etched in the minds of today’s connoisseurs. We can now delve even deeper into individual lieux-dits through an ever-expanding array of single-vineyard Champagnes. For decades, Philipponnat’s 1935-initiated Clos des Goisses from Aÿ’s monumental slope stood alone. The modern single-vineyard boom began in 1979 with Krug’s Clos du Mesnil, and the growth since the 1990s has been exponential. Through site-specific Champagnes, we have learned to thirst for such terroirs as Ambonnay Les Crayères, Cramant Le Bâteau, and Le Mesnil-sur-Oger Les Chétillons. The modern single-vineyard boom began in 1979, and the growth since the 1990s has been exponential Elevating the ‘autres crus’ Equally significant is the rise of Champagne’s autres crus, the once-overlooked villages without premier cru or grand cru designation. Montgueux and the Côte des Bar in the south have become particularly dynamic regions. Thanks to vigneron Emmanuel Lassaigne’s work at Jacques Lassaigne, Montgueux’s majestic Chardonnays are in high demand – not only by the major houses, which prize their structured elegance, but by discerning consumers seeking unique expressions. Another quickly rising village is Les Riceys – Champagne’s largest cru, with well over 800ha (1,980 acres) – where Olivier Horiot and Domaine Alexandre Bonnet showcase Pinot Noir’s distinctive power. If the classification were reassessed today, neither of these villages would remain autres crus. Following in the footsteps of the consistently magnificent Cédric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne Champagnes, the list of exciting producers in the Côte des Bar continues to expand, reflecting the subregion’s dynamism. Recently, I’ve been impressed by the bright, transparent non-interventionist style of Domaine de Bichery (Neuville-sur-Seine) and the sheer expressiveness of Clandestin (Landreville). The Champagne septet Chardonnay always remains in fashion in Champagne, but it is thrilling to see more regional expressions emerging. Among the most striking are Ulysse Collin’s single-vineyard wines from the up-and-coming Coteaux du Petit Morin, just south of the Côte des Blancs. The Sézannais and Vitryat regions are establishing themselves strongly, as is Montagne de Reims, which offers a wealth of exceptional Chardonnay sites. One of my personal favourites is Rilly-la-Montagne’s chalky Les Blanches Voies terroir, where both Vilmart & Cie and Huré Frères craft magnificent wines. Meunier, long out of fashion, has enjoyed a remarkable resurgence thanks to the passionate growers of the Vallée de la Marne. Once again in the spotlight through the work of, for example, Tarlant, Jérôme Prévost and Egly-Ouriet, today producers such as Nicolas Maillart, Gounel-Lassalle and Laherte Frères are elevating Meunier to unprecedented heights. Despite this progress, I believe Meunier still has vast untapped potential to reveal. In Champagne’s Pinot Noir heartland of the Grande Vallée de la Marne, houses such as Bollinger and Philipponnat are cementing their authority with a string of pure Pinot Noir releases. But what’s notable today is that the new wave of blancs de noirs is no longer chasing cult benchmarks like Bollinger’s Vieilles Vignes Françaises and Krug’s Clos d’Ambonnay – bottlings famed for their unapologetic richness. Instead, the spotlight is shifting to a fresher, more contemporary interpretation of Pinot Noir. Consider the precision of Nicolas Maillart’s Montchenot or the electric verve of Domaine La Borderie’s De Quoi Te Mêles-Tu?; these are wines embodying a new aesthetic that privileges finesse over power. In a nod to its past, Champagne is tentatively reviving its forgotten heritage grapes Arbane, Petit Meslier, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris. Let’s not overstate the trend – plantings of these cépages still account for just 0.4% of the region’s vineyard area, up only a fraction from 0.3% a few years ago – but the trajectory is undeniable: over the past two decades, these varieties have expanded by 45ha, now covering 136ha in total. The south of Champagne has quietly kept the flame alive, where Arbane, Petit Meslier, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris continue to offer an unmistakable local accent. Domaine Alexandre Bonnet’s Blanc de Blancs, for instance, is half Pinot Blanc, half Chardonnay. Arbane may remain an infamously meagre producer, yet vignerons such as Laherte Frères see real promise in Petit Meslier, particularly in the era of climate change, thanks to the piercing freshness it brings to the glass. Evolution, not revolution Freshness, rather than ripeness, has become Champagne’s new obsession. With harvests creeping into August and fruit coming in under a blazing sun, the challenge now is to preserve acidity, not to coax maturity. The old orthodoxy of 100% malolactic fermentation is giving way as more producers choose to let a streak of crisp malic acid sharpen their blends. Even the sacred formulas of brut Non-Vintage cuvées are being rewritten. Previously, reserve wines were prized for softening edges and adding richness, but today they are reimagined as a safeguard for vitality. Louis Roederer has gone so far as to reinvent its flagship Non-Vintage, now called Collection, introducing a perpetual reserve stored in gigantic vats – a safeguard of freshness that now defines the wine’s very DNA. Simultaneously, it has evolved from an ‘ageless’ Non-Vintage, with no reference to its base year or disgorgement, into a collectable, complete with edition numbering, like the Jacquesson 700 series or Lanson Création. The moment has finally arrived in Champagne to stop concealing the base year and other technical details and instead to celebrate them with pride. Falling sugar levels and minimal intervention The shift in Champagne’s taste profile goes hand in hand with a steady trimming of dosage. Despite the buzz in sommelier circles and wine-press headlines, the ultra-dry styles remain a statistical footnote: barely 3.6% of exported Champagnes carry less than 6g/l (extra-brut or brut nature). Yet the broader reality is unmistakable: sugar levels are falling fast. Dom Pérignon’s 2015 Vintage, for example, sits at just 4.5g/l. It’s not only prestige cuvées chasing purity; the entire region is recalibrating as even the world’s most popular Champagne, Moët & Chandon Impérial, is dropped down to a record low dosage of 6g/l. The old rationale of softening searing acidity with sugar has lost its purpose. In today’s warmer vintages, the dash of sugar is ‘seasoning’, tempering phenolic bite and extending the wine’s length and deliciousness. Few regions have leaned on sugar as heavily as Champagne. Traditionally, it has been added three times: first to enrich the must for higher alcohol (chaptalisation), then to spark the second fermentation in bottle, and finally as the sweetening dosage. Today, however, the pendulum is swinging towards authenticity, and sugar is a villain there. In a move pioneered by Agrapart in 2007, some vignerons are replacing industrial sugar with preserved grape must from the previous harvest to ignite the second fermentation (or, if bottling later, with the juice of the new season). Since the 2019 vintage, Fabrice Pouillon of Champagne R Pouillon & Fils has gone a step further, crafting his Champagnes entirely without external sugar. Even when dosage is applied, it comes from grape juice itself. It’s a small revolution – one that redefines purity in a region that was once synonymous with sweetness. If the first wave of Champagne’s game-changers sometimes veered into excess with bone-dry bottlings, overpowering oak, and (too) low sulphites, the next generation has found its stride with impressively sound and exciting wines, often achieved through minimal-intervention techniques. With offerings that are precise, vibrant and true to site, producers such as Jules Brochet and Domaine de Bichery exemplify this new, confident minimalism. For those chasing innovation, Famille Moussé is a must-visit. Cédric Moussé, a true inventive force, equips his ultra-sustainable winery with every tool and gadget imaginable. In the village of Cuisles, he has even launched Champagne’s first cooperative to cultivate vineyards with the aid of robots. For a greener future At the same time, Champagne is getting greener. Comité Champagne is pushing for a collective effort, while the grandes maisons are turning corporate ambition into vineyard action. The EPI Group trio (Piper-Heidsieck, Charles Heidsieck and Rare Champagne) were the first in the region to achieve B Corp certification. Pernod Ricard’s houses – GH Mumm and Perrier-Jouët – are championing regenerative viticulture. Ruinart, the sustainability flagship of LVMH’s Champagne empire, houses a landmark vitiforestry project across its vast Taissy holdings. But the movement is not confined to big brands – for example, Aurélien Lurquin and Domaine La Borderie are doing impressive work. And while small houses remain Champagne’s most visible champions of organics and biodynamics, it is Louis Roederer that has rewritten the scale: with 130ha now certified organic, it alone represents almost 6% of Champagne’s total organically certified vineyard area (2,240ha as of the end of 2024). As transportation makes up the lion’s share of Champagne’s carbon footprint, producers are finally looking at rationalising their packaging. Cédric Moussé recently developed the lightest bottle so far, which will enter the market in two years’ time. He also transitioned from traditional metal capsules to recyclable paper ones, which reportedly have a carbon footprint just 20% of that of aluminium. Ruinart deserves high praise for its Second Skin bottle cover, moulded to the contours of the bottle. Fully recyclable and made from 99% paper, the case is marketed as nine times lighter than its predecessor. Beyond the sustainability gains, it elegantly addresses a quality concern: Ruinart’s hugely popular Non-Vintage Blanc de Blancs in clear glass is now protected from light-strike – a phenomenon that can rapidly degrade Champagne yet is overlooked by consumers and the trade alike. Moving away from clear glass is not just a matter of quality, it is also a sustainability imperative, as these bottles require new, rather than recycled, glass for production.The Champagne landscape has never been more thrilling. Beyond the classic offerings, you’ll find late-disgorged gems, rosé de macération, clos and other site-specific expressions; perpetual reserves; and cuvées aged in a multitude of vessels from oak and sandstone to glass and clay amphorae, each promising a fresh take on the region’s tradition. Today’s younger buyers crave brands that marry luxury with ethics, and Champagne is responding. The rules are changing, the classics are evolving, and the next sip could redefine everything you thought you knew. Browse all Champagne listings 

Can Champagne evolve while preserving the traditions that define it? Writing for Club Oenologique in 2026, Essi Avellan MW draws on her recent tastings to explore the trends and exceptional wines shaping Champagne today and redefining luxury for a new generation of connoisseurs.

Writing for Club Oenologique in 2026, Essi Avellan MW draws on her recent tastings to explore the trends and exceptional wines shaping Champagne today.

Terroir vision: the future of Champagne

What is Cristal – and who makes it? 
The Grande Marque Champagne Louis Roederer produces Cristal. Founded in 1833, Roederer is the largest independent, family-owned Champagne house today. Cristal is their prestige cuvée – the very best wine they produce, only made in the finest years. Always a vintage wine, it's a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The current Chef de Cave (and Executive Vice-President) at the house is Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, who is responsible for the entire Louis Roederer range. When was Cristal first made? The wine is considered the first and original “prestige cuvée”. It was first made for Tsar Alexander II in 1876, after he asked Louis Roederer to reserve the house’s best wine for him and his court. At the time, Roederer was one of the few house’s to own its own vineyards (a legacy that continues today). A gold capsule and label was used to indicate that the wine was the best in the range, as was common at the time. Reportedly, the Tsar lived in fear of assassination – and as such requested that the wine be bottled in clear glass, so that he could see if it had been poisoned, and with a flat bottom so that bombs couldn’t be contained in the punt (the traditional indent in the base of Champagne bottles). The glass used was lead-crystal – giving the wine its name, “Cristal”. When the Russian Revolution took place in 1917 and the Tsars were no more, Roederer continued to make the wine – releasing it commercially for the first time in 1945. Although the wine would originally have been sweet, the dry style of Champagne gradually became more popular (made initially for the English market) and Cristal evolved with the fashion. Today it is one of the most sought-after Champagnes in the world, alongside other prestige cuvées such as Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagne, Dom Pérignon, Krug, Pol Roger’s Sir Winston Churchill, Veuve Clicquot’s La Grande Dame and Bollinger’s Grande Année. How is Cristal made? Until 1999, Cristal was blended solely on taste. Different parcels from Roederer’s estate vineyards were tasted blind and the best-possible wine created. From 1999 onwards, however, Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon took over and started using the same 45 plots, all mid-slope with chalky soils across seven different Grands Crus. These plots have all been farmed biodynamically since 2012. Only fruit from vines more than 20 years old is used for the prestige cuvée, with any younger-vine fruit declassified to the Collection bottlings (the estate’s vintage, Blanc de Blancs and rosé wines all come from specific vineyards). Typically, it’s a blend of around 40% Chardonnay and 60% Pinot Noir. The base wines are mainly fermented in stainless steel, with a proportion in oak. The wine undergoes secondary fermentation and is aged on lees for a minimum six years, then aged for at least eight months after disgorgement prior to release. With climate change and general trends in Champagne, the dosage has been reduced – from 12-13 to around 8g/l today. The final blend is still blind-tasted by the family to ensure the wine is up to scratch. Around 300,000 to 400,000 bottles of Cristal are made a year. 
What does Cristal taste like? Cristal is an incredible Champagne – and one of the most age-worthy. With vibrant acidity and refined minerality, it is a linear and precise style of Champagne that rewards time in bottle. Complex, expressive and aromatic, critics have awarded the wine multiple 100-point scores over the years – notably the 2002 and 2008 vintages. To further emphasise its ageability, in 2017 Louis Roederer released the first of a new series of Vinothèque bottlings – aged both longer on lees and then for a further 10 years on cork. The first Vinothèque wines were from the 1995 vintage, but wines from 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2000 have since also been released. These are available in extremely limited volumes, but offer a taste of the wines with maturity. They tend to have a slightly lower dosage than the earlier-released wines. Is Cristal rosé? Yes and no. The original prestige cuvée is a white wine, however a rosé sibling was introduced with the 1974 vintage, created by Jean-Claude Rouzaud. The wine celebrates old-vine Pinot Noir from Grand Cru vineyards in Aÿ, historically from three sites (Bonotte Pierre Robert, Gargeotte and Côte du Moulin), but now also from La Villers. Pinot Noir typically represents 55% of the blend, complemented with Chardonnay from Pierre Vaudon in Avize and Montmartin in Le Mesnil. Cristal Rosé is made using the saignée method – pressing the grapes to extract colour, with the Pinot and Chardonnay then co-fermented (rather than blending). From the 2008 vintage, the Pinot Noir sees a cold-soak "infusion" with no punching over/pumping down, for up to 10 days. Around 20% of the base wine is aged in oak. The wine goes through secondary fermentation in bottle and is aged on lees for around eight years prior to release. Why is Cristal wrapped in plastic? The trademark gold cellophane wrapper is to protect the wine from UV light. As the wine is bottled in clear glass, UV light can cause “light strike” – a fault that causes cabbage or rotten-egg aromas in the wine. As such, the plastic should be kept on the wine until it is served. Cristal’s street cred and controversy Cristal was once the choice of hip-hop’s most famous names. “Cristal forever/Play the crib when it’s mink weather,” raps the Notorious B.I.G. on Jay-Z’s Brooklyn’s Finest. Raekwon, 50 Cent, Big L and many more were all fans. Tupac even created a cocktail with Cristal called “Thug Passion”, a combination of Cristal and Alizé Gold Passion liqueur. In 2006, however, Frédéric Rouzaud – seventh-generation of the Roederer family and CEO – was asked in an interview about the wine’s association with a “bling” lifestyle. In response he said, “What can we do? We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.” Jay-Z responded: “It has come to my attention that the managing director of Cristal, Frédéric Rouzaud, views the ‘hip-hop’ culture as ‘unwelcome attention’. I view his comments as racist and will no longer support any of his products through any of my various brands, including the 40/40 Club, nor in my personal life.” Others followed, and soon Cristal was replaced by other wines and spirits. Jay-Z’s own brand of Champagne, Armand de Brignac, was launched later that year – thought partly to be a retaliation. Browse all Cristal listings or read more Editorial 


Cristal is one of the world’s most sought-after wines – but how did Champagne Louis Roederer’s prestige cuvée come to be, and what makes it so special? Here’s everything you need to know about the wine

Everything you need to know about Cristal – Champagne Louis Roederer’s cult prestige cuvée, from its Russian beginnings to hip-hop credibility

Your ultimate guide to Cristal Champagne

Everything you need to know about Cristal Champagne

Wine journalists are jaded folk – spoilt by too many impressive tastings, lunches and dinners. But when Champagne Louis Roederer invites you to an event celebrating 50 years of Cristal Rosé, few refuse. Cristal Rosé is, as Chef de Cave Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon told us, still “a hidden gem” and the rarest cuvée Roederer produces. It’s not often shown, and even visitors to the estate don’t get to taste the wine.  While Cristal – Champagne’s first prestige cuvée – was created in 1876, its pink sibling was born almost a century later. It was Jean-Claude Rouzaud, current CEO Frédéric Rouzaud’s father, who created the wine, aged 32. He had been managing the company’s vineyards and took over the winemaking in 1974.  “His great vision was to put the vines back in the centre of the creative process,” explains seventh-generation Frédéric Rouzaud. For Roederer, site and farming have long been key to what they do (long operating both as a grower and négociant), but Jean-Claude’s move from vineyard to cellar pushed this further, allowing for – as Lécaillon put it – “a creative and constant dialogue between the vineyard and cellar”.  The same year that he started leading the cellar team, Jean-Claude decided to make a rosé version of Cristal. Almost all rosé Champagne was – and is – made by blending a still red wine in with the base white wines. Jean-Claude, however, wanted to use co-fermentation to keep the wine in the style of Cristal, a decision that Lécaillon says was key, making the wine more ethereal, precise and “Pinot-y”, with a juicier texture.  The wine was built around parcels of Pinot Noir in the Bonottes area of Aÿ, which Lécaillon describes as the “Musigny” of Champagne. In his mind, the Pinot Noir from these plots offers a “special tannic complexity” – tannins that are more saline, integrated and aromatic; the Pinot Noir here is, he says, “effortlessly perfect” and the heart of Cristal Rosé. These three vineyards (Bonotte Pierre Robert, Gargeotte and Côte du Moulin) had been used for Cristal since the 1870s, and more recently became the source for Pinot Noir material for their vine nursery – with 150 different massal selections taken from the plots – long recognised for their quality.  The three original Pinot Noir plots are now being replanted and – while the vines mature – another site in Aÿ, La Villers, a mid-slope parcel at higher altitude, is currently being used in the blend (from the 2018 vintage). It is set to form part of the wine long-term, its cooler position thought to be of particular benefit with climate change. Complementing the 55% Pinot Noir is Chardonnay from two sites – Pierre Vaudon in Avize (bringing more power and richness) and Montmartin in Le Mesnil (lending length, salinity and a chalky minerality).  The first two vintages (1974 and 1975) were more experimental, as Jean-Claude figured the wine and style out, but the third attempt in 1976 produced something special – with sufficient phenolic ripeness to produce a rosé truly worthy of the Cristal name. Even now, 48 years later, that wine is singing – combining savoury rye and brown miso notes with pear tarte tatin and an earthy power. While it had a flurry of three vintages at the start of its life, just 25 vintages of Cristal Rosé have been produced to date. The wine needs a year where not only the quality of fruit is outstanding, but the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay ripen at the same time – allowing for their co-fermentation – something that is relatively rare.  Only made with vines that are minimum 20 years old, yields are low for Champagne (at 35-40hl/ha).  The Pinot Noir is destemmed, crushed and left to macerate. Earlier vintages saw this happen over two to four days and at warmer temperatures, but the winemaking has evolved over the years, with a pivotal shift from the 2008 vintage. From 2008. Lécaillon started chilling the Pinot Noir down to -4̊C overnight, prior to de-stemming and crushing the fruit – something which he believes avoids extracting any green character.   The must is then left to cold-soak for between seven and 10 days, with no punch-downs or pump-overs – a true “infusion” (to avoid any microbial spoilage, they cover it with dry ice for the first four days, then use nitrogen). The must isn’t chilled during this time, and the temperature gradually rises to a maximum 8-9̊C. Moving to a cold-soak was inspired by an accident. In the warm 1989 vintage, Lécaillon’s first year at Roederer, they didn’t have a cooling system in the cellar, and the Pinot Noir was left in a reefer – undergoing an inadvertent cold-soak. The resulting wine was so good that it inspired Lécaillon.  Just as the fermentation starts, the must is racked off and blended with the Chardonnay which has been whole-bunch pressed pneumatically (Lécaillon argues the grape’s reductive nature needs a little skin contact to avoid being overly thiol-driven and Sauvignon-esque). Around 20% of the base wine sees oak. After secondary fermentation (under crown cap, something with Lécaillon argues helps preserve precision and terroir versus cork), the wine spends eight years on its lees, developing immense complexity.  “Since 1974, it has been our laboratory of farming, of winemaking,” says Jean-Baptise Lécaillon of the wine. Cristal Rosé was in fact the House’s first cuvée to be farmed biodynamically, and the first biodynamic prestige cuvée in Champagne, from the 2007 vintage. He explains that he is looking for phenolic ripeness, integrated with the salinity of Champagne, seamlessly combining the tannins and acidity; a wine complemented – but not dominated – by bubbles of salt.  The wine is undeniably remarkable. Tasting through a range of vintages from 1976 to the present day, all in magnum (find full tasting notes below), the vibrancy, purity and moreish, saline, minerality of these wines left me speechless. Their ability to age is effortless, with the 1989, for example, still tasting incredibly youthful. Talking about Cristal Rosé’s evolution, Lécaillon explains that he finds the first decade is all about fruit, but then the wines return to their site and soil, becoming wines of place. Conversation strays into weather Champagne today, with global warming, can still make wines that will age as beautifully.  “Champagne is not just about acid; it’s about freshness,” says Lécaillon. He points to the 1976 and 1989 vintages – both incredibly hot years, with the fruit picked at almost 12% potential alcohol and modest acidity levels – and yet the wines are full of freshness. Back then, producers were on holiday throughout August, and the fruit was picked in September (1st for the 1976 and from 5th for the 1989), but with such conditions today they would have harvested in mid-August. It is perhaps, he suggests, a lesson that the region is overreacting to warm conditions – with too many producers chasing acidity, rather than phenolic ripeness. For the skins are, he argues, the key to this sense of freshness, the dry extract that allows the wine to age.   The House has introduced a Cristal Rosé Vinothèque, or late release. To date, there have only been a handful of vintages – the 1995, 1996, 1999 and 2002. The maturation for this wine isn’t set and varies according to the vintage, normally spending longer on its lees, both sur latte (lying down) and sur pointe (upside down), the idea being to build umami complexity in the wine. The sur pointe ageing is unusual, something Lécaillon favours for its more reductive nature, keeping the wine aromatically fresh (the wine is still riddled four times a year in the same position, to agitate the lees and absorb any oxygen). Generally these releases are offered around 15-17 years after the vintage. The dosage is often lower than the original bottling, with the longer lees ageing lending balance without a higher sugar addition. Tasting the 2002 Vinothèque (a wine that feels infantile), Lécaillon says: “Is it better? I don’t know, but it’s another expression.”  I’ve written before about Lécaillon’s tireless approach to wine-growing – constantly looking to learn and evolve, and the week after our dive into Cristal Rosé he was flying to Japan to visit the Fukuoka farm (founded by Masanobu Fukuoka, the author of The One-Straw Revolution and a pioneer of permaculture or “natural” farming). His fight against the “banalisation” of taste continues, as he looks for ever-more ways to enrich the world of Louis Roederer. If the next 50 years of Cristal Rosé is nearly as good as the first, we’ve all got a lot to look forward to.  Five decades of Cristal Rosé: the tasting  2013 Cristal Rosé: A beautiful, late-ripening growing season that provided the last October harvest to date. A wine Chef de Cave Jean-Baptise Lécaillon describes as having “eternal youth” – something that is hard to disagree with after tasting the wine. This is a baby, the nose enticing with delicate floral aromas and bright citrus, not giving too much away. The palate is long and saline, tightly wound, but bursting with bright fruit on the mouthwatering finish, combining lush redcurrant and lemon. Gorgeous. Dosage 7g/l, tasted from magnum.  2012 Cristal Rosé: Lécaillon notes how 2012 was seen as an “easy” vintage on release, riper and richer with a little more Pinot Noir in the blend, but is now entering its second life, with reductive, chalky notes that bring it back to its soils. The wine is beautifully earthy and drastically different to the 2013, with power and intensity. It’s very savoury, a wine that is all about breadth and structure, with wild strawberry and raspberry notes mingling alongside a sea-spray freshness, driving on to a long, mineral finish. Dosage 8g/l, tasted from magnum.  2008 Cristal Rosé: This was the first fully organic vintage for the entire Roederer estate, and marks the start of a new era for Cristal Rosé with its cool “infusion” technique for the Pinot Noir. Paired with the 1995 vintage, the two wines are windows into two completely different worlds of Cristal. With the copper tone of a sunset, it’s a wine of muscle. It’s almost haughty, with length, power and elegance – showing off its flawless structure, with a zesty citrus drive complementing its austerity. The finish is long and saline. It will be incredible to taste this in 20 years’ time. Dosage 8g/l, tasted from magnum.  1995 Cristal Rosé: This vintage was one of the last to see the Pinot Noir soaked at 20-24̊C. It is, in Lécaillon’s mind, the “same terroir, but a different story” versus more modern iterations of the wine. The wine glows golden in the glass – the colour of the sun just as it breaks the horizon. It’s incredibly open, the aromatics constantly shifting to reveal new layers. There’s a touch of mushroom or truffle, but with layers of rich, almost tropical, fruit behind – think peach, mango, peach tea and the bite of pomegranate, with caramel sweetness, but still a saline twist to the finish. A wine of weight and depth. Dosage 12g/l, tasted from magnum.  1989 Cristal Rosé: This was a very warm vintage, harvested from 5th September, and the wine technically doesn’t have high acidity – yet is a wine of impressive freshness. Grilled hazelnuts edge a nose of candied orange peel and pomegranate, and a coffee note that emerges with air. There’s a liveliness to the palate here, even over three decades on, with a gorgeous freshness and creaminess to the mousse. The fruit on the palate is lush, with generous mouth-watering peach and a taut, mineral backbone. It’s amazing how young this tastes still. Dosage 12g/l, tasted from magnum.  1976 Cristal Rosé: Despite coming from another warm vintage (with a very hot, dry August – and harvested from 1st September), Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon notes the freshness on the 1976 vintage, and how it seems to have never become too evolved. It’s much more savoury than the 1976, with rye bread and brown miso sitting alongside caramelised pears, tarte tatin and a hint of Oloroso Sherry. The palate is a rush of fine bubbles, fresh and with a citrus bite but a savoury framework behind. A remarkable wine. Dosage 10g/l, tasted from magnum.  2002 Cristal Rosé Vinothèque: This was disgorged in 2019, spending 11 years on lees sur latte, and then another five sur pointe, followed by an additional four years’ post-disgorgement ageing prior to release. This wine is so tightly coiled, a wine not yet revealing everything it has to offer – although you can see the incredible structure. It’s so vibrant, with energy and a lushness as it drives toward a seemingly never-ending finish. It’s gorgeous, layered with mandarin, grapefruit pith, chalky minerality and smoked salt, lingering on the soft, saline tail of the mouthwatering finish. Dosage 8g/l, tasted from magnum.    The releases of Cristal Rosé to date: 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2014  Browse all current listings from Champagne Louis Roederer or read more Editorial 

This year marks the 50th birthday of Cristal Rosé, Champagne Louis Roederer’s rarest wine. Sophie Thorpe caught up with CEO Frédéric Rouzaud and Chef de Cave Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon about this very special prestige cuvée and tastes through five decades of the wine

As Champagne Louis Roederer celebrates the 50th birthday of Cristal Rose, we talk to Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon and Frederic Rouzaud 

Celebrating 50 years of Cristal Rose Champagne

Five decades of Cristal Rosé

I. Distractions In 1987, when I was 18 and a dollar was worth more than twice as much as it is today, I started reading magazines: M, Esquire, GQ. Nearby, in our somewhat cultured Texas town, a new bookstore opened in a cavernous space that had formerly housed the shag-carpeted roller skating rink of our childhood. Through the front windows, which had before been darkly tinted to give the place an alluring den-of-prepubescent-iniquity vibe, now streamed bright, clean light, showcasing a look and layout that would become the interior design gestalt of today’s national-chain, big-box book superstore. The rows upon rows of open, dustless shelving bearing a veritable warehouse of volumes; the ceiling hung with its industrial innards on display; the enfilade of check-out cubicles; and the wall – the great wall – that displayed a preposterous-to-behold assortment of glossies, quarterlies, journals, newsweeklies, fanzines, tabloids, almanacs, and all other flora and fauna of magazines arrayed upon a rack perhaps 50 feet long.  I went in there to look for a book. I liked books, and, one day, I was sure I wanted to write one. But I got distracted and bought a magazine instead – that August’s issue of GQ, which still stands out in my mind as a thing of formative significance. At that time, the zeitgeist was defined by a Walkman-wearing version of the American Renaissance Man – the highly-ambitious, status-obsessed, money-motivated, health-nut known as a Yuppie. No magazine positioned itself more authoritatively in defining this new sociological creature’s lifestyle than GQ, and it did it with whiter teeth, snappier suspenders, better accessories, bigger polka dots and more caffeine in the ink of its display copy.  I remember that issue less for the photos by Richard Avedon or Steven Meisel, the words of Martin Amis or Frederick Exley, than for this: Erzeugerabfüllung. It was one of the longest, strangest strings of letters from the Roman alphabet I had ever seen. Neither did it seem designed to come out of someone’s mouth. But there it was in Alan Richman’s Wine & Spirits column, accompanied by a lovely still-life photograph of his topic: two bottles of Riesling Kabinetts on a white, sun-dappled tablecloth. Richman’s main point – made almost 35 years ago – still holds true: estate-bottled, table-quality German wines remain some of the least expensive, most delicious wines in the world, chiefly because – then as now – the labels, as he wrote, “cannot be understood by anyone who is not a part-time oenophile, linguist and cartographer”. One US dollar in Richman’s pocket, as I have already said, bought what roughly two-dollars-and-fifty-cents does today; what he was on the hunt for was a good dry white in a range that would now cost somewhere between 12 and 30 bucks, and he easily accomplished that by finding a dealer in New York City who carried a good selection of wines from the Mosel and Rheingau. At the time, I didn’t know the meaning or significance of any of this, but it staked a claim in my brain. The only wine I had ever tasted was the one served at our Episcopal church during Eucharist on Sundays. The flavour it had was of a strange, super-concentrated jam that somehow warmed your upper body. Even as a young kid, I liked it. But the adjectives these German bottles were squeezing out of Richman – “citrus-like”, “honeyed”, “tart-sweet” – weren’t close to describing what was in that chalice, even if you believed in transubstantiation. Was it because Richman’s wine was white, and the parish’s was red? Perhaps, but both colours of grape juice bottled by Welch’s tasted pretty much the same to me. No, I sensed there was something – a lot – I had to learn, and, along with the romance and beauty of the labels, and the contextual air of well-bred taste and cultural with-it-ness featured on the other pages, this, I feel sure, was the decisive moment, the true origin point, when I came to believe that among the many extraordinary things that make life worth living, not just words but wine reigns at the top.  I warned you about distractions, didn’t I? Because that would be my excuse for now informing you, as a quite apropos footnote, that, yes, there was something unusual about our church’s Communion wine. It was, as I have confirmed with the church, actually port (Taylor’s Tawny, to be more accurate), cut, according to tradition, with water. There is a good and fascinating reason for this. In 1701, when the War of the Spanish Succession kicked off, France also became an enemy of England, and its wines, as a result, were no longer made available for import. The Anglican Church searched for and found a replacement, the fortified wines of its new ally, Portugal, and port continues to be an acceptable option to pair with the Host.  II. Distillations A satisfying story, not unlike a satisfying life, is one that surprises you with the mystery of its unfolding. A thing pulls in a certain direction long enough to reach the proximity of something else which then turns toward a new destination. I had actually gone into that bookstore, as I said, to look at books. But I came out, even though I didn’t yet know it, with a different compass point. Within a few years, shortly after graduating from college, in 1992, I got hired by The New Yorker, where I stayed for almost nine years. I then met my future wife, who wisely laughed at the thought we might be able to survive in New York City on my meagre salary, so I went to Vogue, and soon after became the founding editor of Men’s Vogue. After 23 issues, and four years, the financial crisis laid an axe to many magazines, including that one. Eventually, I took on the editorship of Town & Country. Then, finally, in 2016, I moved up to Esquire, the magazine, as it happens, that didn’t offer me a job when The New Yorker did, and became that storied magazine’s editor in chief, until – well, you best read about that in The New York Times.  As far as distractions go, magazines were a good one. They made me who I am, gave me a tremendously worldly education, honed my taste, introduced me to all manner of accomplished people, required me to build quite a wardrobe, and paid me pretty well to do all of this, often with a glass of wine not far out of the picture. There was really no other way I would have ever got to taste all the bottles I have (a lot of the big names people whisper about from Burgundy and Bordeaux, Champagne and also Piedmont, Tuscany and Napa). I built a modest cave à vin of my own by buying the Smith Haut Lafittes of the world way before hedge-fund hoi polloi ran up the prices, and by having access to rare offerings, like 12 bottles of Fiorano, the legendary white wine Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, prince of Venosa, made before ripping out all his vines. I smelled the musty perfume of Margaux in the cellar as I watched the workers rack the wine by candlelight. I lured Jay McInerney away from the Wall Street Journal to become my wine columnist; and I once stood in Bordeaux’s town square, tight on 2002 Pétrus, trying with great focus to commune with the statue of Michel de Montaigne while my French friend, a true oenophile, extolled the majesty of the Big Mac’s special sauce.  As the editor of a magazine, curiosity is your profession, even to the point of distraction. Editors – writers, too – are prone to it. It’s a hazard of the gift, and having a jumble of ideas, if you’re any good, is key to making a magazine of any real intellectual or creative daring. Now as a husband and father of three, working from home and trying to be ‘present’, and a still youngish former editor and occasional micro-influencer trying to stave off the solitude to fathom and plot the next phase of a fruitful future, this skill of mine, the strength of which became even more magnified over two decades, is something of a family project.  The way I most often hear the word ‘distraction’ now, for instance, is when it’s being hurled at me in verb form by my wife or daughters accusing me of being more of a phone-enslaved screen vegetable than they are. (I respectfully disagree.) But it’s a sore point for two reasons. One, what I did as an editor is, in a nutshell, now what a smartphone essentially does. Not very imaginatively, of course, and not with taste or charm or originality, but with a bloody, money-grubbing ruthlessness that stalks every step of our digital peregrinations and doesn’t give a twist if the algorithms that are its brain make us its slave by retrofitting our attention spans for kindergarten.  The smartphone – not the former me or any of my fellow kind still in the media biz – is now the true croupier of culture, dealing out a targeted shuffle of Pavlovian temptations to the point of daily mental exhaustion. And, though this thing is in many ways my personal nemesis, I am, against every fibre of my being, too often its obedient servant. Aiming not to live according to the famous line by T.S. Eliot – “distracted from distraction by distraction” – I recently decided to at least take a serious inventory of my favourite ones, both those of the pre-digital sort (tennis, The Walking Dead, checking the mailbox, my sock collection) and those of the post-digital sort (the any and everything I do because my phone wants me to). Then I caught myself watching tennis on my phone and realised this might be harder than I thought. It’s enough to drive a person to drink, thank god! With that in mind, I like to keep a special something for the occasion around, in this case – what else? – two bottles of Riesling Kabinett, for it had struck me as more than a little weird that I’ve probably tasted fewer than a handful of German wines in my entire life. Part of the reason is that those I had were bad, and, like a lot of other simpletons about this great wine region of the world, I’d come to think of Riesling as a cloying elixir equal parts green Jolly Rancher, apple cider vinegar, and hairspray. This, I knew, was wrong, not true and, in terms of wine equity and inclusion, on the wrong side of history. But, if you happen to live in a place like I do – a bourgie swathe of Connecticut bordering New York City where the shops cater heavily to Cali-Fran-Taly banker’s tastes – it might take you a few stops to find what Richman recommended, an erzeugerabfüllung (estate-bottled) Kabinett (wine made from grapes with a minimum must weight/sugar content) Riesling, and when you do it will probably be coated in a fine sift of years-old dust. I bought a green (Mosel) bottle for US$16 and a brown (Rhine) bottle for US$20, both handsomely labelled. I opened them a few minutes ago and took several investigative swigs. The words bright, invigorating and snappy came to mind. One is indeed sweeter, and, though not my usual jam, it is tamped by a pleasing peachy tartness, and the classic overtone of honey isn’t making my palate feel doused with syrup. The other example is, as Richman said so long ago, a very finely layered creature with mineral clarity and an echo of baked bread, something a gluten-free person like me finds particularly appealing. A rather obvious thought: why haven’t I been buying this instead of throwing a ton of endless money at affordably bad white Burgundy, which is mostly a product aimed at fulfilling a desired outcome, like White Claw hard seltzer? III. Words But don’t let me get distracted, again. A writer really has to be careful about such things. Just think about it. Unlike, say, a painter or musician or actor or photographer, the process of writing requires zero physical exertion, no chance to score an endorphin release while sitting staring anxiously at a blank page. Of the many things in life that vie against the counter intuitive impulse to be glued to a desk, Cyril Connolly, in Enemies of Promise, his classic study of the things that distracted him (and others) from becoming a great writer, names the temptations but does not say much about why they’re so deeply tempting to someone who would otherwise be sitting alone in an empty room. Praise, money, fame, social prominence, affairs and journalism are the most common boltholes, according to Connolly, who, as a famously late sleeper that married three times, might have also added the bliss of unconsciousness and excessive alimony. In 1938, the year the book was published, he would never have imagined how hard the task might get without a cigarette. Smoking is a death wish, I know, but when you want to off yourself for still having a hundred pages to go, being able to snap open a nice lighter, flick some ash, stub a butt and inhale some lungfuls of focus-enhancing nicotine must have been kind of helpful. Connolly also doesn’t have much to say about drink except that artists who drink to excess do so “out of the consciousness of wasted ability”. According to that, the 20th century’s most famous literary alcoholics – Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Styron, Elizabeth Bishop, James Joyce, Raymond Chandler, William Faulkner – might have left behind even greater treasures than they did. Because Ernest Hemingway did almost everything with more gusto than any of his peers, including running up his bar tab, as a drinker he belongs in his own sentence. He is the novelist who most romanced a good drink or nice bottle of wine as one of life’s great pleasures. Who didn’t want to have a vermouth with Jake when reading The Sun Also Rises? (Don’t, it’s gross, at least if you order it at one of those kiosks in Montmartre where the bottles are hung upside down with spring-loaded dispensers.) Or, track down a bottle of Valdepeñas, Hemingway’s favourite variety of Spanish wine. Or, get a drink at the bar named after him at the Ritz, in Paris, and then go somewhere on the Left Bank to order “a dozen portugaises and a half-carafe of the dry white wine”.  In the early work, he is not boastful about drinking so much as he is the possessor of an unusual appetite for a good buzz. He is also, like Connolly, aware of the need to keep writing separate from drinking, and drinking within his control. It is hard to read the first paragraph of A Moveable Feast, in which he describes an “evilly run café where the drunkards of the quarter crowded together and I kept away from it because of the smell of dirty bodies and the sour smell of drunkenness”, except as a kind of terrifying admonition to himself. It is tragic that he didn’t heed his own advice. Late in his life, Hemingway became fond of rum daiquiris at the Floridita, his favourite bar in Havana, which might explain his taste for a prose style that soon became too often cloying self-parody. In one of the most extraordinary drinking sessions ever committed to words, in the roman à clef Across the River and Into the Trees, a 50-year-old Hemingway, who was smitten with a teenage Italian countess from Venice, fictionalises his infatuation with a last muse. In one stretch (that covers an evening-to-dawn crawl from Harry’s Bar, the grill at the Gritti Palace, a gondola and a hotel room), one half or another of the couple imbibes: one scotch whisky and soda; six Montgomery Martinis (15 parts gin; 1 part vermouth), two of which are described in size as ‘super’; a bottle of Capri Bianco; two bottles of Valpolicella; two bottles of Roederer Brut ’42; and two bottles of Perrier-Jouët. That is, I suppose, one extreme, and, clearly, not one to be tried at home.  The other might have been espoused by Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great critic and lexicographer. As a young man, he’d drained “many a bottle of wine” but loved port especially. (Perhaps Johnson, a devout Anglican who was born in 1709, in the midst of England’s 14-year war with Spain, also first encountered port as a boy at the Communion altar.) He describes himself to friend and biographer James Boswell as having been “apt to go to excess in it”, adding that, “therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it”.  Boswell, who worried about his own dependence on alcohol, even keeping a journal of his intake in an attempt to enforce moderation, argued for a third way, which some of the Romantics later adopted. Wine, he claimed, “produces truth; in vino veritas”. Hoping to persuade Johnson of his point, Boswell once convinced the critic to come down off the wagon for just one glass of claret, so Johnson “might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation”. Boswell reports what happened after the glass was emptied: “Johnson shook his head, and said, ‘Poor stuff! No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men,’” adding, “‘A man would be drowned by it before it made him drunk.’”  That actually reminds me of something I think I forgot to mention about Riesling Kabinetts – they’re also highly admired for their low percentage of alcohol. On that note, I think I’ll have another glass.  This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue Two.

Jay Fielden, former editor of Men’s Vogue, Town & Country and Esquire, recalls how a magazine column on wine, read in a Texas bookstore, shifted his ambitions beyond journalism and set him on the path to becoming a writer of books.

Former Esquire editor-in-chief Jay Fielden reflects on magazines, writing, Riesling Kabinett and the distractions that shaped a life in words and wine.

Jay Fielden on Wine, Words and Distraction

How one became another  

Group CEO Patrick O’Connor reflects on Bordeaux 2025: a hot, dry and early vintage defined by small yields, precise viticulture, restrained winemaking and a new wave of estates delivering wines of real distinction.

Patrick O’Connor, Group CEO, explores Bordeaux 2025: a hot, dry, early vintage shaped by precision, small yields and standout wines.

Bordeaux 2025 en primeur: vintage overview      

Bordeaux 2025: vintage overview               

From humble beginnings in Beaujolais in the 1980s, the natural wine movement has become a global force. But what influence has it had just north in Burgundy’s long-established, terroir-focused appellations? Simon J Woolf explores the blurred line between classical and natural winegrowing

From Beaujolais to Burgundy, how has the natural wine movement shaped a terroir-driven region? For FONDATA Simon J Woolf explores the changing landscape.

Natural Wine’s Influence on Burgundy

Nature vs. Nurture: The quest for Burgundy’s true identity

A vintage earned the hard way The growing season: Pressure without pause The wines: Classical, transparent, terroir-driven Producers who rose to the challenge Positioning Burgundy 2024 A vintage to buy thoughtfully and early A vintage earned the hard way Burgundy 2024 will be remembered as one of the most testing growing seasons of the last decade. Relentless spring rain, unyielding mildew pressure, episodes of localised hail and deeply uneven flowering pushed growers to their limits. Yields collapsed across large parts of the Côte, often by 50–80%, with some domaines barely reaching 10 hl/ha. In villages such as Vosne-Romanée, Nuits-Saint-Georges, Chambolle-Musigny, Gevrey-Chambertin and Savigny-lès-Beaune, the losses were devastating. And yet, against all expectations, the wines themselves tell a different story. 2024 is not a vintage of excess or easy charm. It is a classical year, one defined by purity, freshness and an almost stubborn transparency of terroir. Many vignerons, reflecting on the wines in barrel, have drawn comparisons to 2010, 2012, 2014 and even 2016, not because the conditions were similar, but because the results are finely structured, saline, precise wines, shaped by restraint and experience rather than power. This is Burgundy at its most honest. The growing season: Pressure without pause The difficulties began early. From April through June, rainfall was almost continuous, creating ideal conditions for mildew. Even the most diligent growers were pushed to extremes. Treatment schedules doubled or even tripled: 17 passes at Georges Lignier, 22 at Charles Audoin (against a norm of 12), 17 at Pavelot, 17 again at Faiveley. Organic viticulture, in particular, was placed under immense strain. Some domaines made the painful decision to abandon organic certification mid-season in order to preserve what fruit remained. Others refused. Audoin persisted with organic practices despite catastrophic losses, sacrificing yield in favour of principle. At Domaine Lamarche, Nicole Lamarche chose to stop treatments altogether once the damage was done, preferring to let the vines recover naturally rather than force a compromised crop – a decision that may yet prove prescient for future vintages. Flowering was irregular and prolonged, leading to widespread coulure and millerandage. Localised hail compounded the damage: Audoin’s Clos du Roy in Marsannay was effectively wiped out. By early summer, it was clear that 2024 would be a year of scarcity. Then, finally, the season turned. From August onwards, conditions stabilised. Nights remained cool, days were warm but not excessive, and crucially the weather stayed dry. Harvests began between the 14th and 21st of September, slightly later for whites and Aligoté. Thanks to rigorous sorting, sanitary conditions were generally good, and what little fruit remained ripened cleanly. Alcohols settled modestly, typically between 12% and 13%. Many domaines opted for small chaptalisations to bring balance rather than richness. Acidity remained healthy, pH levels often between 3.2 and 3.6, though some, like Lignier, intervened gently to avoid excessively high pH. It was, in every sense, a vintage that had to be earned. The wines: Classical, transparent, terroir-driven Reds: Precision over power Across both the Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune, the reds of 2024 speak quietly but clearly. Red fruit dominates: cherry, raspberry, wild strawberry, framed by saline notes and fine, linear tannins. There is freshness rather than weight, definition rather than density. Alcohol levels rarely exceed 13%, and the balance between fruit, acidity and structure is striking. Several producers have likened the vintage to 2012 for its texture, to 2010 for its precision, or to 2016 for its harmony, though with a distinctly modern clarity. Despite the concentration imposed by low yields, these are not massive wines. Many will drink earlier than expected, yet the underlying structure suggests graceful ageing, particularly from well-sited Premier and Grand Cru vineyards. Whites: One of the vintage’s great successes If there is a consensus emerging, it is this: white Burgundy lovers should pay close attention to 2024. With pH levels often between 3.2 and 3.35 and alcohols in the 12–13% range, the whites are taut, mineral and saline, with a cut reminiscent of 2014. There is energy here, wines that feel built for the cellar rather than the tasting bench. For collectors who prize tension, definition and longevity over richness, 2024 will be a compelling proposition. Producers who rose to the challenge The defining characteristic of 2024 is not uniformity, but differentiation. This is a vintage that rewards decisiveness, experience and clarity of philosophy. At Georges Lignier in Morey-St-Denis, repeated rainfall washed away organic treatments, forcing the domaine into laborious hand-spraying. A decisive early intervention ultimately preserved yields of 24 hl/ha, dramatically higher than neighbouring vineyards at 8 hl/ha. The Clos de la Roche stands out for its generosity and classical breadth. Charles Audoin endured one of the hardest seasons in Marsannay, remaining organic through 22 treatments and losing Clos du Roy entirely to hail. The wines evoke 2010 in their purity and structure, with Les Favières emerging as a highlight. Louis Jadot, facing heavy losses and a demanding season, spoke of “fighting to keep Burgundy affordable” yet produced precise, harmonious wines – including St Aubin En Remilly, one of our favourite plots and a FINE+RARE exclusive which we are proud to secure each year, bottled only in magnum. At Hudelot-Noëllat and Fourrier, volumes are heartbreakingly small but the wines are clear, fragrant and unmistakably from their place. Paul Pernot’s whites show vibrant freshness and deep acidity, with Puligny-Montrachet Les Folatières standing out for its tension and grace.  The 2024s from Alvina Pernot combine the freshness of 2017 with the accessibility of 2021, yet offer greater depth and poise.  At A-F Gros, frost proved more damaging than mildew, reducing yields by 70%. The increasing use of Clayver amphora (now close to 50%) has brought a vivid, electric quality to the wines, particularly the Richebourg. Olivier Bernstein produced just two to four barrels per cuvée, yet the wines combine the charm of 2016 with the lift of 2017. Bonnes-Mares is especially compelling, and the domaine remains focused on deepening consumer understanding through tastings and back-vintage context. In the Côte de Beaune, Guillaume Lafon marks his first vintage fully at the helm. With almost no new oak and a preference for demi-muids, the wines prioritise purity and line. The Bourgogne Blanc is a standout, carrying a clear Lafon signature. At Domaine des Lambrays, Jacques Devauges described 2024 as “a difficult vintage with a happy end.” Yields fell sharply (16 hl/ha for Clos des Lambrays) yet the wines, made with 80% whole bunch, possess remarkable poise. His claim that “2024 Lambrays will age 100 years” may sound bold, but the structure supports the ambition. Meanwhile, Nicole Lamarche endured losses of up to 90%, producing just one barrel of Vosne Village and four of Échézeaux. As ever, the wines are spiritual and precise, and her decision to step back in the vineyard may well strengthen future vintages. Across Marsannay, Savigny and Gevrey, domaines such as Bouvier, Pavelot, Chézeaux and Hérestzyn-Mazzini all delivered wines of striking purity, often from minuscule quantities, proof that old vines, careful sorting and restraint paid dividends. Positioning Burgundy 2024 This is not a vintage built for hype. It does not trade on power or immediate seduction. Instead, its strength lies in substance. Scarcity is real, many domaines report their smallest crops in decades, but speculation misses the point. The true narrative of 2024 is integrity: who stayed the course, who adapted intelligently, and who resisted the temptation to force a result. Collectors will recognise this instinctively. The wines speak a language that Burgundy lovers understand: freshness, salinity, site expression and balance. Whites, in particular, will attract those who cherish the great classical years. Above all, 2024 stands out as a perfectly transitional vintage. While waiting for more structured years such as 2020, 2022 and 2023 to open, 2024, like 2021, offers wines that are approachable in their youth. Following the generosity of 2017, the now fully open 2019 and the fruit-forward 2021, it takes its place among vintages defined by immediate pleasure, allowing richer years the time to settle in the cellar. A vintage to buy thoughtfully and early Burgundy 2024 is a year where experience mattered more than weather, and philosophy mattered more than yield. Production is painfully low, but quality is consistent among serious growers. For collectors, the focus should be clear: Domaines with rigorous viticulture and judgement under pressure Producers refining and clarifying their stylistic identity Grand Crus from houses that embraced restraint High-performing villages such as Marsannay, Savigny and Santenay, where value remains This is a vintage whose story deserves to be told with clarity and conviction, an instructive vintage for newcomers and new buyers fortunate enough to secure a bottle, but also one that offers immediate pleasure for collectors. Read more or browse all available Burgundy 2024 en primeur. 

There are vintages that arrive fully formed, almost generously so. And then there are vintages like 2024 – years that must be wrestled from the elements, where judgement, discipline and philosophy matter as much as sunshine.

There are vintages that arrive fully formed, almost generously so. And then there are vintages like 2024. 

Burgundy 2024: vintage overview

After a mild winter with no frost or hail, rain set in from March through June. Mildew and coulure appeared early and never fully left. Some growers doubled their treatments as storms repeatedly washed away protection. By the end of the season, rainfall measured around 1,200 millimetres, almost forty percent higher than normal.

 The toll on yields was severe. Many domaines lost between a quarter and forty percent of their whites and, in some cases, as much as seventy percent of their reds. From July onward the sun returned, bringing a steadier rhythm and healthy fruit for what remained. Most harvested between the second and third week of September, with careful sorting both in the vineyard and in the cellar.

 What has emerged is a cooler, finer, more traditional expression of Burgundy. The wines carry modest alcohol, clear acidity and a sense of restraint that will appeal to those who love the region’s classical line and balance. Charles van Canneyt put it best: “It’s not because we had bad weather that we made bad wine.”

 Our early tastings underline that point. At Paul Pernot the whites show vibrant freshness and deep acidity, with Puligny-Montrachet Les Folatières standing out for its tension and grace. At Alvina Pernot the 2024s carry the freshness of 2017 and the accessibility of 2021, but with greater depth and poise. Louis Jadot, facing heavy losses and a demanding season, spoke of “fighting to keep Burgundy affordable” yet produced precise, harmonious wines — including St Aubin En Remilly, one of our favourite plots and a FINE+RARE exclusive which we are proud to secure each year, bottled only in magnum. At Hudelot-Noëllat and Fourrier, volumes are heartbreakingly small but the wines are clear, fragrant and unmistakably from their place.

 Across the market, demand continues to evolve. In the United States the auction scene remains strong as collectors seek drinking vintages in a post-tariff environment. The United Kingdom continues to lead on diversity and value, supported by one of the most sophisticated import and agency networks anywhere. Central Europe, particularly Italy and Switzerland, is expanding steadily as collectors look beyond the classics while still favouring white Burgundy, red Bordeaux and Champagne. Hong Kong remains the fastest-growing market for white wine, with sustained enthusiasm for fine Chardonnay and mature Champagne.
 
How Burgundy En Primeur will birth itself in this context is both uncertain and certainly unlike Bordeaux En Primeur. The growing dominance of white Burgundy, and the combination of rarity, quality, desirability and still real value in parts, mark an emergence that feels above appellation and above trend. Burgundy continues to evolve on its own terms, shaped more by individual growers and their decisions than by collective rhythm. How far that rhythm will carry depends on relevance in a market where even Michelin now questions its own portfolio brand, Robert Parker, and where independent voices such as Jamie Goode, driven by limitless curiosity and free of editorial constraint, continue to test every assumption.

 With Burgundy 2024, scarcity will define the campaign, but so too will authenticity. The wines are shaped by adversity yet carry grace and purity. This is a year that reminds us why Burgundy remains the most human of fine wine regions. Next week we will share our first producer profiles and early tasting notes from across Burgundy. For now, we raise a glass to the growers who weathered the year and to a vintage made not in abundance, but in spirit. 
Written by Patrick O’Connor (CEO), Craig Norton (Managing Director) and Antoine Ninot (Senior Buyer) at FINE+RARE, following a recent visit to Burgundy. Browse all 2024 Burgundy released so far.

Last week we were in Burgundy for a pre-campaign look at the vintage, meeting some of the most significant and representative voices across the region. The conversations were candid. The mood, reflective. Every grower spoke of a year that tested both patience and resilience.

Our early look at Burgundy’s 2024 vintage reveals a year of challenges and quiet beauty — shaped by resilience, balance and authenticity.

A first look at the Burgundy 2024 vintage

Burgundy 2024: first impressions

Louis Roederer

France

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Collection times are between 8:30am - 12pm & 1:30pm - 4:30pm, Monday to Friday. Wines at Will Call, that are not picked up within 10 business days, will be transferred to storage and subject to a $1.50 per bottle stocking fee.

Items to be sourced and shipped to our state-of-the-art fine wine storage facility for the best possible safe-keeping where you can arrange collection from our warehouse address in Napa.

Will Call (Napa)

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We're in the final stages of upgrading to our brand-new trading platform. As part of this transition, we're currently migrating all customer-owned inventory to ensure a smooth and seamless experience.

Our new and improved platform will be ready for you on Friday, April 4.

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Sign in to your {name} account to buy, store, value and sell fine wine and spirits, and track your order history and account details.

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About description for demonstration purposes

shows all the items you currently store with us. These items can be sold, delivered or transferred.

At {shortName}

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Your pre-order item will be deleted. Are you sure you want to continue?

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represents all the wines that are in your possession and have been consumed.

This is the price you paid for this item.

Cost price

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The lowest price you're willing to sell at. If the net price goes below this value your listing will be removed.

shows all the items that you have pre-ordered, including en primeur wines, and all the items on your watchlist.

Futures

You can set a floor price on items you're selling based on a % of current unit net value.

You can set a market price on items you're selling based on a % of current unit net value.

shows all the actions that you have taken on items in your Portfolio.

groups every action by type - Purchase, Sale, Delivery, and Inbound Transfer - so it's clear at a glance what happened to each item.

History

shows all the items that are currently in transit to or from {shortName}.

In transit

Local delivery is free for orders over HK$1,800 (to a single location). For orders below this value, delivery is HK$150 for up to four cases and HK$50 per case thereafter.

Shipping starts from €15 within Italy and €45 to Switzerland and the rest of Europe for up to 48 bottles (75cl). Costs vary by destination. Larger shipments can be quoted on request.

The date shown below is when your order will ship from our local warehouse. Your final delivery date, along with full tracking details, will be provided once our team has processed your request.

You can arrange collection from our Retail store on 22nd Floor, 8 Wyndham Street, Central Hong Kong.
Collection times are between 9:30am-13:00 and 14:00-18:00pm, Monday to Friday. We are closed on public holidays.

You can arranged collection from our warehouse STI INTERNAZIONALE SPA, on Viale del Lavoro, 57, 37051 Bovolone, Verona.
Pick-up hours are between 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM, Monday to Friday. We are closed on public holidays.

This is the current estimated market value for this item.

Manually set prices will be overwritten. Already listed wines are not affected.

Updates all unlisted wines to current market price.

Set all at market

represents all the wines you currently have in your Portfolio that aren't stored with us. Press the

My cellar

Name

Net price

New portfolio available

New portfolio

You do not have any invoices at this time.

shows all the items from your Portfolio that are currently on the market.

On sale

shows all the items you currently have in your Portfolio. You can perform individual actions on them from this page.

Overview

shows any items that are currently awaiting user action.

Pending

This is the dynamic market price of the item with trading margin removed.

This is the amount of profit you will receive if your listing sells.

Pre-authorised payments enable automatic transactions on your behalf, ensuring seamless and hassle-free payments. This allows recurring charges, subscriptions, or scheduled payments to be processed without manual approval each time.

The number of cases you wish to place on sale

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Your catalogue items will be archived. Are you sure you want to continue?

Before you request delivery, you can adjust the quantity for each item in your selection below.

*Market price is dynamic and may change. At time of sale a 10% trading fee will be deducted from the final sale price.

Total market price*

The fixed custom price you wish to sell each item for.

Split into {caseSize} individual {bottleSize}cl bottles.

Title

shows all the items you currently store with us. These items can be sold.

Available for sale — items stored with {name} eligible to be listed on the marketplace.

Profile

This item is at FINE+RARE, available for storage, transfer or delivery.
 Most UK deliveries can be made within 3-5 working days, with next day delivery for London;
 an exact date will be available when arranging delivery.
 International deliveries have longer lead-times, please contact us for details.

This item is at FINE+RARE HOME Hong Kong, available for delivery or local pickup. Most Hong Kong deliveries can be made within 3 working days, an exact date will be available when arranging delivery. International deliveries have longer lead-times, please contact us for details.

Wines sold en primeur will be released from the producer after bottling, typically 18 months after the so-called campaign ends. Your wine will then be stored by FINE+RARE in a bonded warehouse until you decide to take delivery.

We will source this item at the guaranteed price from our network of suppliers and arrange expedited shipment to FINE+RARE.
 The lead-time depends on many variables, but 2-4 weeks is typical for expedited sourcing.
 Once your order is confirmed, we'll keep you updated on its ETA.
 Every item is checked on arrival by our expert team, with photographs available on request (please note that charges may apply).

We will source this item at the guaranteed price from our network of suppliers and arrange shipment to FINE+RARE.
 The lead-time depends on many variables, but 6-12 weeks is an average estimate.
 Once your order is confirmed, we'll keep you updated on its ETA.
 Every item is checked on arrival by our expert team, with photographs available on request (please note that charges may apply).

Louis Roederer

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