Area under vines: 214 hectares
Wines Vineyard Holdings:
The 2008 Cristal is just starting to open and into its first plateau of what is likely to be a very long drinking window. Bright and intensely saline, with terrific depth, Cristal shows everything that makes this vintage so appealing, namely a captivating mix of fruit intensity and bright, piercing acids. As alluring as the 2008 is today, it also needs time to be at its very best. Roederer launched the more open 2009 ahead of the 2008, which means the 2008 saw ten years on the lees, quite a bit longer than most vintages, all of which it needed. The 2008 seems to presage a new era at Roederer in which the wines have been consistently brilliant. Dosage is 8 grams per liter. Disgorged: 2018
Anticipated maturity: 2023-2050
To be released April 2018. I tasted a trial sample of a wine that is not yet disgorged. This will be the first time a Cristal has been launched at 10 years old. Lecaillon: the Cristal 1996 should have been an exceptional vintage like 2008 but we all agreed that we picked a week too early. And we should have done more malo. So we improved on this in 2008 with 16% malo, and now the 2008s are the perfect 1996s . Dosage was just 8 g/l, the lowest ever. Lecaillon thinks 2008 is even better than 2002 potentially; the concentration of 2002 is the result of wind, but the concentration of 2008 is soil-related, thanks to the very long growing season. Very persistent. This is a marvellous wine that is incredibly complete and but obviously still youthful. Cristal followers are in for a major treat.
Anticipated maturity: 2018-2040
