Roederer/Louis Brut Rosé Champagne Cristal 2012

100 points/'Le Coup de Coeur,' La Revue du Vin de France (2021).

98-100 points Essi Avellan, MW: "Already upon launch this rosé shows rare harmony and seamlessness. It is opulently fruity and exuberantly Pinot-packed yet at the same time seductively silky-textured. The voluminous palate is perfectly integrated to the wine’s superb freshness that carries it to a great length. Structured whilst soft and comes with Cristal Rosé’s hallmark elegance and radiance. Highly enjoyable already but with great long-term ageing capacity. A perfect reflection of the vintage’s best qualities. Magnificent albeit super youthful in magnum, it is seductively classy and ultra refined with lots of hidden power. This intense, fruit-packed wine will defy time. 7/2023."

99 points Jeb Dunnuck: "Just about as good as it gets, the 2012 Cristal Rosé is a magical effort based on 56% Pinot Noir and 44% Chardonnay. It’s a powerful, medium to full-bodied, incredibly textured rosé offering a huge amount of salty, chalky minerality as well as awesome notes of white cherries, orange blossom, caramelized apples, and toasted bread. It shows the ripe, rounded richness of the 2012 vintage yet has bright, racy acidity, perfect balance, and a great, great finish. It opens up nicely with air and will ideally be given 2-4 years of bottle age, and it should evolve for 2-3 decades. Drink: 2022-2054. (7/7/20)"

99 points James Suckling: "This is a great vintage for Cristal Rosé. The pinot noir finds a band of power and expressiveness. The power here is impressive, very assertive and rich, really mouth-filling and super deep. This is exceptional and has intense, chalky and fresh, white-peach and nectarine aromas, underpinning red flowers and pink fruit. The palate has a scintillating blend of flesh and mineral cut, packed with such sweet, pristine, white-strawberry flavor and texture. This has such incredible potential. So exciting. Will take another two or threw years to resolve. Look out for this! Drink from 2025. (12/3/19)"

98+ points John Gilman (View From the Cellar): "The 2012 Louis Roederer Cristal Brut Rosé is a magical wine in the making. It is composed this year of a blend of fifty-six percent pinot noir and forty-four percent chardonnay, with fifteen percent of the vins clairs having been barrel-fermented in this vintage. None of the vins clairs underwent malo this year and the finishing dosage for the 2012 is eight grams per liter. The wine is superb and just a bit more accessible out of the blocks than the regular 2012 Cristal, wafting from the glass in a very refined constellation of apple, white peach, gentle smokiness, chalky soil tones, a nice touch of fresh-baked bread, caraway seed, incipient smokiness and a topnote of dried flowers. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, racy and bottomless at the core, with lovely mineral drive, refined mousse, impeccable focus and grip and a very, very long, very pure and nascently complex finish. This is not quite as buttoned up behind its girdle of acidity as the regular 2012 Cristal, but it is by no means ready for primetime drinking and still needs a minimum of eight to ten years in the cellar to really unfold. Great juice. 2027-2080. (Nov/Dec 2019)"

98+ points Antonio Galloni (Vinous): "The 2012 Cristal Rosé is magnificent. When Chef de Caves Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon started to move Roederer towards organically farmed fruit, he started with Cristal Rosé, Roederer’s smallest production cuveé. Because of that, Cristal Rosé is the wine in this range that shows the current Roederer style in its fullest expression. Rich, vivid and crystalline in the glass, the 2012 Cristal Rosé is a Champagne of tremendous gravitas. Chalk, white flowers, sweet red berry fruit, mint and blood orange are all beautifully delineated. The 2012 is 55% Pinot from Ay and 45% Chardonnay from Mesnil and Avize. The Pinot fruit gets a 7-10 day cold soak an is the infused into the fermenting Chardonnay musts. Readers who can find the 2012 should not hesitate, as it is truly magical. Dosage is 8 grams per liter. Drink: 2022-2052. (Dec 2019)"

98 points William Kelley (Wine Advocate): "The 2012 Cristal Rosé is showing brilliantly, unwinding in the glass with a beautiful bouquet of fresh peach, bergamot, strawberries, tangerine and blanched almonds that's still quite reserved. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, deep and strikingly complete, its vinous attack segueing into a multidimensional core that exemplifies the ideal of power without weight, built around a racy but integrated spine of animating acidity and complemented by an exquisitely refined mousse. All the concentration of the 2012 vintage is on display, but it's rendered with terrific finesse. Decidedly youthful and introverted—indeed, I spent several hours with a bottle to compose this note—the 2012 will really come into its own with five or six years in the cellar and displays all the attributes necessary for considerable longevity. It's a blend of 56% Pinot Noir and 44% Chardonnay that saw no malolactic fermentation, and it was disgorged with eight grams per liter dosage. Drink: 2025-2065. (Mar 2020)"

98 points Tyson Stelzer (The Champagne Guide): "(56% pinot noir, 44% chardonnay, 15% vinified in oak casks, no malolactic fermentation, 8g/L dosage; an identical blend and dosage and almost identical oak to the 2008, but without malolactic fermentation here). There is a profound delicacy and reticence to this Cristal Rosé, more than any before it. Tightly coiled in its desperate youth, it projects a particularly pale salmon hue. Subtle flitters of the most elegant morello cherry, strawberry and red apple fruit dance and tease, promising profound things in the months and years to come, yet volunteering but the slightest suggestions now. It builds magnificently in the glass, the ripeness and concentration of the season rippling with grand pinot noir presence on an expansive mid-palate. At eight years of age, its primary presence is even more pronounced than that of Cristal 2012, supported eloquently by the toasty, spicy nuances of six years on lees. Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon has followed the recipe of 2008 almost to the letter here, rightly deviating only on the point of fully blocking malolactic fermentation. The effect is a dramatic cut of malic acidity that directs a honed finish of profound focus and tension. This promises longevity like rosé rarely ever sees, and this is a release that may yet achieve the rare feat of outliving its white counterpart. In line and length, this is another Cristal of the highest order, relying on the profound interaction of malic acidity and chalk minerality to dictate a structure both effortless and integrated and at the same time astonishingly energetic and disarming. The chalk mineral aspiration of Cristal is again exemplified in a deep and emphatic chalk mandate of texture that permeates every crevice of the palate and the consciousness. Another phenomenal Cristal Rosé, and a worthy successor to the mythical 2008. (Edition VII; 2024)"

98 points The World of Fine Wine: "(Jéroboam) One of the greatest examples of Louis Roederer’s biodynamic advancements, representing a more amplified version of Cristal Rosé. It’s rich, fruity, zesty, and creamy, with some pie-crust secondary character and a touch of bitterness on the way to a long finish. (9/23/24)"