Inspired by the Champagne House’s savoir-faire in the harvest of a single year, this pure Chardonnay is grown on hillside plots in the Avize terroir in the heart of the “La Côte” estate. This champagne draws its strength from the intense chalkiness of these limestone soils which lend it its infinite freshness. With time, this champagne reveals the power and identity of these great terroirs.
Earlier this June, I went down the rabbit hole researching what made the 2017 vintage in Champagne so fascinating. I was also relentlessly hounding my rep about the release of 2017 Dom Pérignon when I met with our rep from Maisons Marques & Domaines, the importer behind Champagne Louis Roederer.
The more I read about 2017, the more intrigued I became. It was a challenging and unusual vintage, particularly for Pinot Noir, but the Chardonnay crop—while small—showed tremendous potential.
Naturally, that got me thinking about Louis Roederer.
How did Roederer handle the vintage? More importantly, what would the assemblage of Cristal 2017 look like?
Then I found out there wasn't going to be one.
Roederer did not produce Cristal in 2017.
But they did produce a 2017 Louis Roederer Blanc de Blancs.
I didn't need to hear anything else.
“How many cases can I get?”
If you know me, you know how much I love Blanc de Blancs Champagne. It's 100% Chardonnay, and at its best I like to think of it as Premier Cru white Burgundy with bubbles—Chardonnay with precision, minerality, depth and that unmistakable energy that only Champagne can deliver.
I also absolutely love Roederer's vintage Champagnes. So when you combine Roederer, vintage Blanc de Blancs and a year in which the house decided not to make Cristal?
I'm all in.
And then there’s the price. The 2017 Roederer Blanc de Blancs comes in at roughly one-third the price of Cristal. No, it isn’t Cristal—and it isn’t trying to be—but you’re getting vintage Louis Roederer, 100% Chardonnay, from a year when the house decided not to produce its flagship Champagne. For me, that made the decision pretty easy.
We ordered 12 cases.
They took a little longer to arrive than I expected, but they're finally here. And, purely in the interest of quality control, I took one for the team and popped a bottle.
This is the real deal.
The 2017 Roederer Blanc de Blancs has the combination I was hoping for: beautiful Chardonnay purity, freshness, tension and minerality, with enough depth and texture to remind you that this is serious vintage Champagne.
My advice is simple: grab a few bottles while you can.
Production is tiny, we only received 12 cases, and I don't expect this one to hang around for long. For Champagne lovers—especially those of us who can't resist great Blanc de Blancs—2017 Louis Roederer Blanc de Blancs is a bottle worth paying attention to.