The 243rd blend from the Louis Roederer Champagne House has the 2018 harvest at its heart. The Perpetual Reserve wines in the blend were created to accentuate freshness and balance the ripeness of the harvest. This Perpetual Reserve brings enhanced tasting sensations.
These reserve wines provide Louis Roederer's hallmark signature, the very essence of its style. They are aged in oak barrels and make up 10% of the Collection 243 blend. The reserve wines add a lovely softness to the blend and some slightly toasted smoky notes.
2018 was warm, continental and produced a unique vintage. Summer set many new records in terms of heat, drought and sunshine levels. The Pinot noirs displayed a luxurious texture whilst the Chardonnays were dense and saline where harvested at perfect ripeness and the Meuniers were intensely fruity. The harvests began on 27 August and ended on 8 September.
Colour: Bright, golden hue with shimmering highlights. Fine, lively mousse with lingering threads of bubbles.
Nose: The bouquet is open and rich yet also wonderfully fresh. It offers an explosion of ripe, delicate fruit with intense
notes of yellow fruit (mirabelle plum) from the Pinot noir complemented by sweet citrus fruits (lemon meringue
pie) and delicate notes of white flowers (jasmine) from the Chardonnay. The nose opens up to reveal autolytic characters and evolves towards smoky, roasted notes and freshly baked pastries.
Palate: Deep and dense in the mouth with a big and well-structured backbone. Elegant in texture, it has a fleshy mouthfeel from the Pinot noir that coats the palate before giving way to an incredible saline freshness with a pleasant hint of bitterness. This wine combines the strength, intensity and power of the delectably ripe Pinot noirs which are balanced to perfection by the chalky freshness and density from the Chardonnay which forms the majority of the blend.
The 243rd blend is composed as follows:
Perpetual Reserve Wines: 31%
(2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)
Reserve wines aged in oak: 10%
(2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)
2018 Vintage: 59%
Collection 243 has all its warmth and generosity thanks to the perfect ripeness of the fruit harvested in the 2018 vintage, yet it is the freshness, energy and complexity of the 'Réserve Perpétuelle' created in 2012, as well as the texture imparted by the oak ageing, that extend and elongate the wines' body resulting in unrivalled finesse and persistence.
The bottle comes presented in a Louis Roederer Collection 243 branded box.
