Louis Roederer Cristal Rose with Gift Box 2012

Professional Ratings

• 99 James Suckling
  This is a great vintage for Cristal Rosé. The pinot noir finds a band of power and expressiveness. The power here is impressive, very assertive and rich, really mouth-filling and super deep. This is exceptional and has intense, chalky and fresh, white-peach and nectarine aromas, underpinning red flowers and pink fruit. The palate has a scintillating blend of flesh and mineral cut, packed with such sweet, pristine, white-strawberry flavor and texture. This has such incredible potential. So exciting. Will take another two or threw years to resolve. Look out for this! Drink from 2025.
• 99 Jeb Dunnuck
  Just about as good as it gets, the 2012 Cristal 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.
• 98 Wine & Spirits
  Some wines have an inherent energy, so their flavors not only align in a recognizable pattern, but also interact in a recognizable way. Perhaps that recognition is a signal that the wine is more than just a delicious drink. The energy in Cristal Rosé converts the umami power of its black-skinned grapes into bright raspberry freshness; it transforms the earthiness of those grapes into a limestone veil, creating delicacy out of pale rock. The energy extends the flavors of the wine so that each time you return to the glass, the transparent fruit continues to deepen, from thimbleberry to strawberry and raspberry, gaining intensity while remaining transparent. It’s the kind of dynamic energy that can survive in an eight-year-old wine if the fruit is farmed in a sweet spot—in the case of Cristal Rosé, pinot noir planted in the 1960s in Aÿ, and chardonnay from Avize, all from midslope parcels, all from chalk soils. The wine’s color comes from the grape skins, macerated just long enough to infuse the juice without adding perceptible tannins. Concentrated and ripe, this is a nourishing vintage of Cristal Rosé. Its subtle power will sustain the wine for decades.
• 98 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
  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.
• 97 Wine Enthusiast
  Years in the making, this is the first fully biodynamic Cristal rosé. The very fine 2012 vintage is a good starting point for this new era. The Champagne is just right, beautifully rich and showing some maturity while also having tension and crispness from the golden-apple and spice flavors. The wine could be drunk now but its future is assured. Organic and biodynamic.
• 96 Wine Spectator
  An elegant rosé Champagne, starting quietly with a subtle range of white cherry, Marcona almond, pink grapefruit zest and saffron flavors that gain momentum and volume as they expand, gliding across the palate's fine, raw silk–like texture. This is mouthwatering and minerally, the symphony concluding with accents of oyster shell and chalk that echo on the finish. Drink now through 2032.