One of 2 wines during dinner with my Roelanda: Dinner with my sweetie: 2013 Cristal and 1997 Williams Selymem Allen Pinot Noir
My sweetie and I enjoyed a fine dinner at the Santa Barbara Club, our first after having been approved for a “proposed” membership as we wait to attain the eventual member status.
As per our date night MO, we took a fine champagne and a dear friend Burt Williams made Pinot Noir from the 1990s.
Roelanda loves Cristal and so that narrowed the choices and since I’m currently reloading my stash, I wanted to do a vintage check with the 3 youngest I have, 2013-2015. Thanks to a good Wine Berserker friend I consulted, I pulled the 2013 which was boxed in a classy, heavy and solid box that not only contained the bottle, but a small, approximately 2” x 4”, also classy pamphlet written in different languages providing some history of Cristal and a bit on this vintage.
I’d had one bottle previously and it was super youthful and not even close to being ready, that I had some trepidation when pouring this bottle. Unfortunately, the classy presentation was the highlight of the experience.
2013 LOUIS ROEDERER CRISTAL- 60% Pinot Noir, 40% Chardonnay sourced from estate vineyards with 1/3 each from Montagne de Reims, Vallée de la Marne and Côtes des Blancs; it spent 6 years on lees; the color was a light straw yellow; I had to search and re-visit the nose for some notes finally discovering mild citrus fruit with a touch of honey; on the palate, I expected lemon and maybe some lime, but got grapefruit with a light lemony chaser delivered in a medium frothy mousse; it was so minimally expressed, I kept waiting for something to come forward, but it never happened over the course of more than an hour; in trying to see the half full, I kept swirling and re-tasting and did find enough to make it a pleasant experience, but only enough to get the obvious message to hold off for a few years before opening another which I may do in buying more as well.
Cheers,
Blake
