TN: 2008 Piper-Heidsieck Rare Rosé ...and rethinking vintage rosé Champagne!

• 2008 Piper-Heidsieck Champagne Rare Rosé - France, Champagne (12/30/2021)
  This is in a stellar drinking window right now! It’s making me rethink high-end rose Champagne! This is crisp, with hints of red fruit, citrus traits of Duncan grapefruit, and lemon, and tangerine peel! It is loaded with mineral, and a fine sea clay. I am blown away by the “vintage traits” as it has so much depth and so many facets. This fall I drank a ton of Vintage Champagnes with fellow Berserkers, that were so amazing, Krug 2002, Comtes 2008, P2 2002, Ruinart BdB 2007, Cristal 2002, and this wine fits perfectly with them. THIS is a multi-faceted, deep as all get out, multi-dimensional, stellar vintage Rosé. (97 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker


The title says rethinking vintage rosé… To be sure I drink more rose than blanc, but most of my greatest bottles have always been blanc. And yes I’ve had plenty of great vintage rosés… Dom, Cristal, Comtes, etc. They are usually good to great, but I cannot remember getting the depth in any of those, nor the extra gear, that I had in this bottle. I thought, by my own experience, on even the ones I scored very high, are just lighter, or less complex. Maybe I need to go to school on this…

Nice note. I know some have mentioned how good their Rare is and I am one of them. I have not tried the Rose however and need to. I also like their NV Champagne which is usually a good value.

I got some last Jan 27! They are not cheap! Agree on NV.

Cool, Charlie!

I’ll be drinking the Rare again tomorrow. The restaurant we are going to has it for $200, which is basically retail.

Got me reconsidering Piper-Heidsieck there seems to be a lot of people saying it has gone down hill… I’m glad this isn’t the case with the Rose.

Pair this wine with anything or just enjoyed as is?

From the handful of times I’ve had it I rate Dom Perignon Rose over the regular bottling (and I rate the regular bottling highly).

Fully priced though!

What were your thoughts about the Rare non-rose? Picked some up in an effort to buy more broadly in the 2008 vintage. Initial thought based on my reading was to hide away my bottles.

What’s the TL;DR of why PH has gone down hill recently?

From what I’ve seen people just think the quality overall doesn’t seem as good as it used to be as the prices of everything keep going up. Some of the things I’ve read is that the wines don’t have as much “interest”.

2012 Vilmart Emotion. You own it yet, Charlie? If not, get it and try it.

Happy holidays buddy.

CT shows it at $450…. Seems rather high.

I was assuming he meant the rare 2008 brut (not rose), for which $200 would be 10-20% over retail and an attractive menu price.

This. And it was excellent.

Thanks for the note. I also usually prefer Blanc but in a recent horizontal of DP 95, the P2 Rosé was easily the winner and incredibly vibrant with racy acidity and freshness. Highly recommended.

Bill, we drank this by itself then I saved some and drank with food. It was great. Rest of crew drinks too fast when it comes to big bottles!!!

I’m unpacking a bunch of Vilmart this week. I’ll look. If none I’ll buy some. Thanks!!!

Thanks. This is what I am getting at, if you’ll pardon my English!

The best way to do it! Enjoy it both ways.

I had a 2012 PH Belle Époque in October. So damn good. I just marveled sip after sip how good it was. Seems like it would very much hold its own in a lineup with Krug GC, Vilmart GcdO, Dom, and others in its price range.

Edit - oops that’s Perrier Jouet not PH. Oh well.

The 2008 Roederer Vintage Rose’ was our epiphany. My wife and I had it at the K&L annual Champagne tasting several years ago and my wife liked it better than other bottles that were 3-4X the price. Needless to say we bought quite a few! And we have been buying most subsequent vintages.

Cheers,
Ed