Or shall we call it ‘The Richards’ ?! Instead of ‘The Champagne Oscars’ ? On this the last day of a year we want to sum-up the year of 2023 from a Champagne perspective. In 20 categories we hand out awards for this years most memorable Champagnes & Champagne related topics!
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Winemaker of the Year
Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon @ Louis Roederer
‘Winemaker is the increadible Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon.
One of the best winemakers in the world.’
RICHARD JUHLIN
All the wines ferment separately, cru by cru, in small steel vats or small barrells, while the reserve wines are stored in large oak barrels. This is said to give the company its special “vanilla touch.” I’m not alone in wondering if certain wines for the prestige variety Cristal aren’t aged in these barrels, as it is precisely in Cristal that one can sometimes discover a nutty, oily, and vanilla-tasting barrel-like character. Another explanation for this toffee-like note of maturity could be that they use a large portion of the best, older, oak-barrel-stored reserve wines in the dosage. Apart from this, up to 20 percent of the oak-aged reserve wine is used in the fantastic non-vintage Champagne Brut Premier. Roederer has no set recipe regarding malolactic fermentation the personal qualities of the wine differ from case to case.
