This past Saturday, Amy, Mick, Kathy and I got together to celebrate New Year’s Eve. As this wasn’t just another normal Saturday night, we decided to kick the wine level up a notch or two. I have been on a Champagne kick this year so I decided to start the meal off with a bottle of Champagne with the starter appetizer.
The Champagne was a bottle of 2004 Cristal by Louis Roederer and the appetizer was an oven bake blue cheese and bacon dip with a selection of crackers. I have done this dip before; here is link to that review and the recipe - http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2011/11/saturday-night-high-end-cab-night-part.html .
I was looking forward to trying this Champagne as the $65 Roederer was our highest rated Champagne on the blog so far and was my personal favourite for 2011, trying Roederer’s top Champagne was something I was excited about. The Cristal definitely gets full marks for packaging, as the bottle was in a lovely golden box that was sealed closed by a 2004 sticker on the front. Opening the box, cradled firmly in the center of the box was the bottle wrapped in yellow/gold cellophane. Taking the plastic cellophane off the bottle and seeing a clear heavy glass bottle with its gold labeling on it was impressive as it was one of the nicer looking bottles of wines I’d seen in a while. If you got this box as a gift and opened it up, there would be no doubt in your mind that its price tag was north of $100 just by the details in the packaging alone.
After popping the cork and pouring out the first glass, I was shocked as I was picking up its nose from more than a foot above the glass. The Cristal’s nose was, by far and away, the most powerful nose of any Champagne I’ve tried to date. The nose was a pleasant combination of orange zest, lime, lilac and yeast. Tasting the wine, it hits your tongue big with creaminess and fruit and finishes crisp and clean. I initially found lime as the dominate flavour but it changed to melon after a few sips and then to mandarin and then mango. It was fascinating to try this wine every few minutes as the flavours of it melded into something else. It worked very well with the blue cheese dip but Mick liked it more on its own than with food.
Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 94, Mark - 94, Kathy – 94, Amy – 93, Overall – 93.75.
Here is the LCBO information for the wine –
CRISTAL BRUT CHAMPAGNE 2004
VINTAGES 268755
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 286.95
Wine, Champagne
12.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : XD
Made in: Champagne, France
By: Louis Roederer
Release Date: Aug 20, 2011
Tasting Note - The 2004 Brut Cristal has put on quite a bit of weight since I first tasted it earlier this year. It is a powerful, structured Cristal layered with considerable fruit. Chardonnay seems to play the leading role in 2004, at least today. Cristal is often accessible young, but that is far from the case here. This is a serious, painfully young Cristal that will require considerable patience. Readers who are willing to spend some time with the wine today will find a super-impressive, complete Cristal. The 2004 Cristal is 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay. This is Lot L033331E100008, disgorged January, 2010. Anticipated maturity: 2014-2034. Score - 97. (Antonio Galloni, erobertparker.com, Dec. 2010)
I had pretty high expectations for this wine and it exceeded them. I never thought I’d find a white wine or sparkling wine that I would put on par with Insignia but Cristal is right there. As a side note, we also open a bottle of the $65 Louis Roederer about midway through the first course as I was curious to see straight up how the two would compare; it wasn’t even close the Cristal smacked it around which was shocking as it is a very good wine in its own right.
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