Louis Roederer Non-Vintage, Brut Premier

Wine Style: White- Champagne

Vintage: Non-Vintage

Country: France

Region: Champagne

Producer: Louis Roederer

Grape Variety: 40% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay, 20% Pinot Meunier

Alcohol:  12%

Bottle Size: 75cl

Tasting Notes:

Brut Premier is the embodiment of Louis Roederer style, combining all the fruitiness and freshness of youth with the vinosity of a fully mature wine. This is a structured and elegantly mature wine, with a lively attack and a smooth palate. Fine bubbles and a nose of fresh fruit and hawthorn. Smooth, complex palate mingling flavours of white-fleshed fruit - apple and pear - with red berries - blackberries, raspberries, cherries - and notes of toast and almonds. A pleasurable wine, deliciously smooth and mature.

Wine Making 

Roederer source two thirds of their grape needs from their own vineyards, which is the largest proportion of any champagne house and enables them to have strict control over their raw materials. For example Roederer 'green harvest’ in July to reduce the amount of grapes and thus improve quality.

The blend of grapes used is: 40% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay, 20% Pinot Meunier. Included in the blend is 10% of reserve wines, which give Brut Premier its extra dimension. Reserve wines are made up of the best wines from at least 3 former vintages, which are set aside to age in large oak casks in the Reserve Wine Cellar. 

 After blending and the addition of the ‘liqueur de tirage’ (this starts off the secondary fermentation, which creates the ‘sparkle’ in champagne) the wines are left to mature for at least four years. This is in excess of the legal minimum. The final stages involve ‘disgorging’ the wine. This is where the sediment formed by the secondary fermentation is removed to give a clear liquid. At this stage the ‘liqueur de dosage’ is added. These liqueur wines are the result of a meticulous selection of wines that have been aged for six to ten years in the famous oak casks. They are added to compensate for the natural acidity of the champagne and to determine the style of the champagne. Before its addition champagne is considered ‘extra brut’ and the more liqueur that is added, the sweeter the champagne will be.

Residual sugar 
10-11 grams per litre. “Liqueur de dosage” is prepared with the greatest of care from a selected blend of eight to ten of the very best crus from from the Louis Roederer vineyard and then left to mature in oak casks. After dosage the champagne is left to rest for a further six months.

More info:

http://www.champagne-roederer.com/en/home/flash.html