Cristal Brut Rose 2012 Champagne 750ml

A blend of around 55% Pinot noir and 45% Chardonnay, comprising 20% of wine matured in oak tuns, Cristal Ros is produced using the saigne (bleeding) process after cold maceration. The Cristal Ros cuve is aged, on average, for 6 years in Louis Roederers cellars.

Critical Acclaim

99 Jeb Dunnuck

Just about as good as it gets, the 2012 Cristal Ros is a magical effort based on 56% Pinot Noir and 44% Chardonnay. Its a powerful, medium to full-bodied, incredibly textured ros offering a huge amount of salty, chalky minerality as well as awesome notes of white cherries, orange blossom, caramelized apples, and toasted bread. It shows the ripe, rounded richness of the 2012 vintage yet has bright, racy acidity, perfect balance, and a great, great finish.

99 James Suckling

This is a great vintage for Cristal Ros. The Pinot Noir finds a band of power and expressiveness. The power here is impressive, very assertive and rich, really mouth-filling and super deep. This is exceptional and has intense, chalky and fresh, white-peach and nectarine aromas, underpinning red flowers and pink fruit. The palate has a scintillating blend of flesh and mineral cut, packed with such sweet, pristine, white-strawberry flavor and texture. This has such incredible potential. So exciting. Look out for this!

98 Wine Advocate

The 2012 Cristal Ros is showing brilliantly, unwinding in the glass with a beautiful bouquet of fresh peach, bergamot, strawberries, tangerine and blanched almonds that’s still quite reserved. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, deep and strikingly complete, its vinous attack segueing into a multidimensional core that exemplifies the ideal of power without weight, built around a racy but integrated spine of animating acidity and complemented by an exquisitely refined mousse. All the concentration of the 2012 vintage is on display, but it’s rendered with terrific finesse. Decidedly youthful and introvertedindeed, I spent several hours with a bottle to compose this notethe 2012 will really come into its own with five or six years in the cellar and displays all the attributes necessary for considerable longevity. It’s a blend of 56% Pinot Noir and 44% Chardonnay that saw no malolactic fermentation, and it was disgorged with eight grams per liter dosage.

98 Vinous

The 2012 Cristal Ros is magnificent. When Chef de Caves Jean-Baptiste Lcaillon started to move Roederer toward organically farmed fruit, he started with Cristal Ros, Roederers smallest production cuve. Because of that, Cristal Ros is the wine in this range that shows the current Roederer style in its fullest expression. Rich, vivid and crystalline in the glass, the 2012 Cristal Ros is a Champagne of tremendous gravitas. Chalk, white flowers, sweet red berry fruit, mint and blood orange are all beautifully delineated. The 2012 is 55% Pinot from Ay and 45% Chardonnay from Mesnil and Avize. The Pinot fruit gets a 7-10 day cold soak an is the infused into the fermenting Chardonnay musts. Readers who can find the 2012 should not hesitate, as it is truly magical. Dosage is 8 grams per liter.

97 Wine Enthusiast

Years in the making, this is the first fully biodynamic Cristal ros. The very fine 2012 vintage is a good starting point for this new era. The Champagne is just right, beautifully rich and showing some maturity while also having tension and crispness from the golden-apple and spice flavors. The wine could be drunk now but its future is assured. Organic and biodynamic.

96 Wine Spectator

An elegant ros Champagne, starting quietly with a subtle range of white cherry, Marcona almond, pink grapefruit zest and saffron flavors that gain momentum and volume as they expand, gliding across the palate’s fine, raw silklike texture. This is mouthwatering and minerally, the symphony concluding with accents of oyster shell and chalk that echo on the finish.