The last bottles of both 2008 and 2009 Cristal that I’ve had have been dominated by an overtly lemon profile. I don’t remember this being the case with previous bottles of either vintage. Has anyone else experienced this?
Never an overly lemon stage in my experience.
If you use it to make a coronavirus cocktail that could happen. 
Yes, my 2009 Cristal tasted strongly, even overpoweringly, of lemon.
Definitely yes, as I currently find lemon in most all vintages since 1998. It seems to be lesser apparent when aging nuances come in and the fruit notes become more in the stone fruit category along with butterscotch and caramel becoming more increasingly prevalent in those bottles ~20-25+ years old. A somewhat recent 82` was a perfect example.
Every '08 cristal I drank had a strong lemon presence.
Pretty funny. I thought yeah I remember some lemon. Let check my notes. Ha! Lemon everywhere.
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2009 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (12/15/2019)
This is impressive as you would think it’s a grower champagne. Excellent acidity very clean angular. Tart lemon and yellow fruit crisp finish and a stone note. -
2008 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (4/28/2019)
Surprised by the dosage as this drinks very linear with strong lemon and bracing acidity. Very clean. I prefer this with food. -
2004 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (5/31/2018)
Blake Brown in the OC - Version 2.0 (The Winery, Newport Beach, CA): This was on the bucket list and I was planning on buying a bottle for our next event. Then this showed up… I didn’t have any expectations other than don’t get too disappointed if it’s just “okay”. It wasn’t okay, it was fantastic. It stood out paired with a Vilmart CdC. Enough said. Light yellow color; white bread and a little oxidation on the nose. Yellow apple and a crazy fluffy mouthfeel. So light and nimble. The soufflé of champagne. Just a hint of salinity and ripe apple and lemon brulee. -
2006 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (6/12/2017)
Paul and Ashley’s Champagne Party (Paul and Ashely’s House): I really liked this wine but it divided the group. If you like grower champagne then this is for you. Like a fully rounded out champer with a higher dosage then probably not. I really like it. Extremely acid driven from start to finish, aggressive and unrelently. Pungent lemon, tart lime, and strong peel notes. Angular came to mind as I was swirling it around in my puckered mouth.
Posted from CellarTracker
Lemon or Lime for me. Here are my notes on 2008 and 2009.
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2009 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (12/14/2019)
This is my WOTY. Just beautiful. Crushed rock aroma, citrus blossom, lime. Impeccable balance yet structured, too. Every bottle I have is just sublime. This is why I love Champagne. -
2008 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (11/25/2019)
Pulled from the cellar and then blinded the bottle, pouring into several glasses. Was uniformly enjoyed. In this bottle, I found oranges, lime zest, green apple, and good intensity. Drinks with a purity and balance that is lovely. And I will also add a point about drinking now…while this doesn’t show the softer and more open-knitted feel of the 2009, for me there is nothing wrong with drinking the 2008 now. With air in the glass, this showed well to me. I recognize I am going to be in the minority in my view, but drinking this now does just fine for me. It’s an amazing wine for what it is. Broadly, I am not buying stuff to age for a decade or more. Life now is about sharing, enjoying wines with others and not putting my wines into a cellared prison for years and years. This is just me. -
2009 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (11/3/2019)
I love this stuff. Pulled on spur of the moment, filled six glasses and then enjoyed some small repours of it over about 45 mins. Orange marmalade, lime skin, green apple, flint/wet rock and perfect balance. Second bottle this year, both times a wow experience, and unless something can unseat this wine before December, this will be my Champagne of the year for 2019. -
2009 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (6/3/2019)
Excellent showing again. Spicy, lemony turning creamy, stony with lime in the finish. This wine remains such an exquisite example of what fine Champagne can express. Love this stuff. -
2008 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (4/28/2019)
Picked up a few bottles from Costco this week here in the OC. One comment about the packaging, coming from someone who thinks a lot about the environment. There is a lot of packaging, and 95% of it is paper so that can be be recycled but there must be 2 pounds of it for each bottle, plus the gold plastic wrapping. As a customer, I don’t need this but in an era of marketing and branding, all I can do as one person is make the remark. As to the wine, this is power. Intense lemon, and the aromatic is like smelling the chalk/soil. Zingy, with intensity of length from the palate long into the finish. Some apple, light caramel, pure lemon. This is a helluva wine, and while the 2009 I had earlier this week was more elegant and stony, this is more powerful and citrus infused. -
2009 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (4/22/2019)
Drinking the last ounce or so from the bottle that was opened about 3 hours ago. It’s pretty still now, but the wine is revealed with the air and the room temp, too. Gorgeous stuff. Stony, with lemon, apple. The balance on this is spot on. Acidity, just the right lift of fruit and structure. And the 2008 is suggested to be of higher caliber than this 2009? Really? I gotta buy some of the 2008 as this 2009 is awesome.
Posted from CellarTracker
Great memory Brig and yes Frank, lots of lime too.
Michael,
Good call out. I haven’t opened a lot of mine, but in my limited experience - yes!
2009 Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut - France, Champagne (3/12/2020)
This is a brilliant champagne. If you pay attention , there is a crescendo of flavors and aromas. Dense citrus including lemon, lime and tangerine. Approachable now, but it promises to be sublime with a little complexity of bottle age.
Cheers,
Warren
I’ve noted lemon zest as well.
2009 Cristal:
Much more open than my last visit 2 years ago. Glad I’ve stocked up on this. Stunning nose of toasted brioche and lemon zest. Super approachable palate. Not necessarily built for the extremely long haul like the 08 but brilliant now.
2000 Cristal:
Color wasn’t much darker than the 09, tasted young and was a little reticent upon opening but was beautiful after 10-15 min in glass. Stunning champagne with lovely aromatics with lemon zest and yeasty bread, well integrated palate with great depth, long finish. Candidate for WOTY, unfortunately only had one.
2004 Cristal
A little tight and has characteristic acidity of 2004 which I find a bit searing. Lemon and lime on the nose. Some time in bottle will probably help this. Right now the only grand Marques I like for current drinking from 04 are Taittinger CDC and Krug.
hmm, I’ve always picked up on tart citrus and freshly baked croissants. Last bottle of '08 was New Years in Amsterdam. “…citrus, green apple and pear galore with lovely acidity to hold the weightlessness through the finish.” And my top champagne this year has been '02 CDC.
NYE, Cristal in Amsterdam. My kind of bliss. Good work!
Perhaps I misinterpreted the question, but I read it as does Cristal go thru a stage where lemon is the dominant character and its one-note.
You do get notes of lemon, lime, green apple and other malic notes, but I’ve never had a Cristal where I said “wow, that is lemony”.
You got it right: “wow, this is lemony”, to the point of almost being one dimensional.
Never had that of many, many bottles, from the 80s on up to 2012.
That I haven’t seen.
When Cristal is young, it definitely has a lime and lemon citrus profile with deeper orange notes often joining in as well. You can argue over whether the lime or the lemon is more pronounced and it can change with the vintage. This profile changes over time as the wine mellows, but I do find it to be a common theme for the lead character for the first 2-3 years after release. Each vintage is different and, when young, sometimes I find the lemon notes to be more lemon blossom, sometimes the orange notes are more concentrated and pronounced. Some years you can get a hint of tart peach. There is certainly a lot more going on in the wine than just the citrus characteristics and I would never call it one-dimensional, but a precise, pure, structured tart citrus flavor is a trademark I find in the wine. 2008 has it in spades, 2009 has it, but with a lot more juiciness and brightness, and 2012 has it as well, but with incredible texture.
I have tasted Cristal vintages in pre-release format and I can say that the younger they are released or the younger the wine seems on release (like 2008), the lemon profile is stronger. With time on the lees or post disgorgement aging this fades and integrates in better. Later disgorged Cristal doesn’t have nearly the same tartness. The lemon-lime becomes orange and peach.
Recent vintages of Cristal have really amped up on the precision, structure, and concentration of the aromas and flavors. A lot of this has come from the work in the vinyeards. You can really taste it in following the still wines over the years. There is a lot more ‘citrus power’ and minerality now on release, but I think it gives the wine more structure and a wider base from which to develop.
Right on Brad!
I haven’t opened a 12 yet, maybe I should.