2012 Cristal Rosé
Buying options
Tasting notes
Lécaillon notes how 2012 was seen as an “easy” vintage on release, riper and richer with a little more Pinot Noir in the blend, but is now entering its second life, with reductive, chalky notes that bring it back to its soils. The wine is beautifully earthy and drastically different to the 2013, with power and intensity. It’s very savoury, a wine that is all about breadth and structure, with wild strawberry and raspberry notes mingling alongside a sea-spray freshness, driving on to a long, mineral finish. Dosage 8g/l, tasted from magnum.
Critic scores
Average Score
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
According to technical director Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, from 2008 onwards when he had his 'system' in place, all Pinot Noir grapes now spend the night after picking in a cold room at -4 °C before a gentle, 'infusing' fermentation lasting 7–10 days with no mechanical punching down. For the first four days the must is covered with dry ice and then nitrogen when the temperature has risen to about 9 °C. Dosage 7 g/l, as for the 2013. (It used to be 12 g/l.) Magnum. Notably deeper-coloured than the 2013 served alongside – positively golden in fact! With a really rich nose and a certain salinity. Very ripe and round thanks to its greater reliance on Pinot Noir than the 2013. (JR)
Just about as good as it gets, the 2012 Cristal Champagne Rosé is a magical effort based on 56% Pinot Noir and 44% Chardonnay. It’s a powerful, medium to full-bodied, incredibly textured rosé 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. It opens up nicely with air and will ideally be given 2-4 years of bottle age, and it should evolve for 2-3 decades.
The 2012 Cristal Rosé 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 introverted—indeed, I spent several hours with a bottle to compose this note—the 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.