Description:

Excellent Champagne about which I've heard a lot but never tried before. It's known as the Champagne of tsars and the expectations are trully fulfilled! Great amalgam of aromas and feelings: complexity without departing from a fresh and relatively straighforward personality. Frank. Aromas of fresh citrics. Grapefruit. Green apple. Fresh white flowers. Coming from the background as a wave and gaining starring character in the front: briocherie, yeast. Flinstone. In mouth, a pure moussy delicacy.--Antoni Ferrer

 I've revisited Roederer's 2013 Cristal four times since I reviewed it in April of this year—including several times from my own cellar—and I had to admit that even my lavish praise didn't do it full justice. Combining the cool-vintage cut of 2008 with the more completely mature fruit of 2012, the 2013 Cristal might well be said to represent the perfect combination of the two from a purist's perspective. The wine unwinds in the glass with notes of crisp orchard fruit, white flowers, almond paste and citrus oil, followed by a medium to full-bodied, seamless and multidimensional palate that's intense but weightless, with racy acids, a pinpoint mousse and a long, penetrating finish. Drink the 2008 Cristal on its own, and you're unlikely—to put it mildly—to have any complaints; but compare it directly with the 2013 and you'll see Roederer's rapid progress in the vineyards writ large. (WK) -- 98 points Wine Advocate