Half bottle, 375ml. The 244th blend from the Louis Roederer Champagne House has its foundations built on the successes of the 2019 harvest, a year of record-breaking temperatures brought by particularly intense heat waves. This has produced wines that are dense and fresh, with a masterful balance. All the wines from this harvest were rigorously tasted, plot by plot, before being blended to recreate the perfect picture of the vintage.
Made up of 54% of the 2019 harvest, Collection 244 is an nod to taste and drinking pleasures. Each year, the Cellar Master composes a new composition, inspired by the nuances of the year and then adds wines from the Perpetual Reserve and the oak-aged reserves. The Perpetual Reserve makes up a significant proportion of the Collection blend and provides its balance and freshness. In Collection 244, it represents 36% of the blend. In parallel to this Perpetual Reserve, 10% of wines from previous years and young plots on the Cristal estate, aged in French oak foudres, are added to the blend.
Spending almost 4 years in the Louis Roederer cellars, Collection 244 is a wine that has reached great plenitude, borne by the maturity of the year, the freshness of the Perpetual Reserve and the complexity of the oak-aged reserve wines. It is a wonderfully well-balanced champagne with an incredibly luscious power, marking the return of the Meunier grape variety, which adds a fruity, caressing softness to the more structured, saline Pinots Noirs and Chardonnays.
Colour: Lovely golden yellow, very champagne-like, hue. Dense and steady flow of extremely fine bubbles.
Nose: Deep, broad bouquet of ripe fruit, wild peaches and william pears come to mind, combined with citrus; lemons and blood oranges. The iodised and smoky notes, associated with the autolysis and the ageing in wood, add aromatic freshness. Then come notes of chalk and a hint of reduction, suggesting that the wine will be concentrated and powerful.
Palate: The delicious opening shows a rich and robust texture. Very juicy and concentrated sensations in the mouth, like biting into a ripe fruit. It's caressingly soft, coating the palate but is then immediately lightened by the delicate bubbles. The length is created by a lovely backbone of chalky freshness. The wine is both delectably rich, with a slightly roasted character, and super fresh thanks to a salivating finish.
Finish: The smoky notes then take over to underpin a very flavoursome finish.
Collection 244 marks the return of the texture of the Meunier grape variety from the Marne and the Montagne. This adds a lovely richness to the well-structured and saline Pinot noir and Chardonnay grapes!
