2002 Pol Roger Cuvee Winston Churchill

A bit more golden in color, the 2002 Champagne Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill Vinothèque shows all the depth and serious nature of the west. The red fruit shines, and the wine is long on chocolate-covered cherries, preserved citrus, saltiness, and full-bodied richness, with notes of toasted bread and pastry and a more serious, gripping structure. It’s long on the palate, with salted citrus and a mouthwatering finish that carries tremendous length. It has more sapidity and depth on the palate and should drink well from 2025-2055. The wines for this report were tasted both at the estate with chef de cave Damien Cambres and in my office in New York. Pol Roger is a sixth-generation, family-owned business founded in 1849 that is based in Epernay and solely focused on Champagne. Damien Cambres replaced former chef de cave Dominique Petit in 2018. Since 2011, they have fully moved to stainless steel fermentation and aging. They house 9.5 kilometers of cellars that are notably deep at 33 meters underground and employ four full-time riddlers to turn the bottles and carefully collect sediment from them. (Only 11 exist in the region today.) This year, they completed a new facility for packaging and shipping that rests on the footprint of the historical site of the original cellars, which disastrously collapsed in 1900, destroying 1.5 million bottles. They own 92 hectares today and produce approximately 1.7 million bottles annually. Pol Roger is a Pinot Noir-based house that focuses on the art of blending. The wines tend to strike a balance of refinement in the mousse without shying away from power and structure across the range.

Pol Roger’s 2002 Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill Vinothèque—a late release of the same original disgorgement (January 2015, with a dosage of eight grams per liter)—has matured gracefully, opening with a deep bouquet of orange zest, Mirabelle plum and burnt sugar, mingled with dried fruit and a faint hint of gunpowder. On the palate, it is full-bodied and layered, with notable musculature and flesh supported by a racy spine of acidity and ample tension. The wine concludes with a long, enveloping finish marked by a delicate saline nuance. I’ve tasted two bottles of this Vinothèque release, one of which showed more oxidative character than the one described here—variation that, in Champagne of this age, can reasonably be attributed to differences in cork performance.

Disgorged in 2013. Dosage 8 g/l. Tasted blind. Orangey straw. Rich and round on the nose. Rather sweet start and with much less energy than the 2004 vintage. A tiny bit heavy. (JR)