Louis Roederer, Brut Vintage, 2018
Louis Roederer, Brut Vintage, 2018
- 75cl
- 12.5%
- White Sparkling
- Pinot Noir, Chardonnay
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Optimal drinking window: 2026 - 2040
Est. delivery in Summer, 2026
Louis Roederer remains one of Champagne's last family-owned grande marques, and their vintage champagne shows precisely why that matters. This 2018 comes from estate vineyards across the Côte des Blancs and Montagne de Reims, where Roederer's obsessive attention to soil health and minimal intervention winemaking creates champagne of real character.
The 2018 vintage was exceptional in Champagne, delivering both ripeness and acidity in equal measure. This cuvée shows classic Roederer style: precise, mineral-driven, with the kind of backbone that rewards patience.
The blend draws from Roederer's finest estate vineyards across chalk-rich soils of the Côte des Blancs and clay-limestone slopes of the Montagne de Reims. These cool, north-facing exposures preserve natural acidity whilst the chalk subsoil provides the mineral backbone that defines great Champagne. The maritime climate and chalky terroir create ideal conditions for slow ripening and phenolic maturity.
Champagne AOC enforces strict rules governing grape varieties, pruning methods, pressing techniques, and mandatory lees ageing. The region's cool climate and chalky soils create ideal conditions for producing base wines with high acidity and delicate flavours essential for méthode champenoise. Vintage champagne may only be declared in exceptional years and must age on lees for minimum three years, though most houses age considerably longer.
The 2018 growing season in Champagne arrived like a gift after several challenging years. Spring brought warm, dry conditions that encouraged healthy flowering, followed by a summer that stayed remarkably consistent without the extreme heat spikes that can shut down photosynthesis. Rain arrived precisely when the vines needed it in late summer, plumping the grapes without diluting their flavour concentration. The harvest began in late August under sunny skies, with growers reporting some of the healthiest fruit they'd seen in years.
What emerged from this kindness was a vintage that marries immediate charm with serious structure. The Chardonnay shows beautiful purity and tension without the sometimes austere backbone of cooler years, while Pinot Noir developed lovely depth of colour and ripe red fruit character that speaks clearly through the bubbles. We find these wines drinking beautifully now, offering both the fresh exuberance that makes Champagne so joyful and the underlying complexity that will reward patience. Most 2018s will hit their stride over the next five to eight years, though the finest cuvées have the backbone to age gracefully well beyond that.
What the critics say:
"Louis Roederer's vintage cuvée is 80% hailing from the northern Montagne de Reims in Pinot Noir in the ripe, approachable 2018 vintage, with the remaining 20% in Chardonnay from Chouilly. The inherent freshness of these northern slopes really benefits the style in such a vintage, with a little more precision and restraint than is sometimes present in 2018 even if the sunny cherry, sweet apple and clementine fruit is still aromatically very ripe. This is polished, silken and gently warmed-up with almond macaron richness and toasted brown bread notes, persistent rather than hugely intense but still standing to benefit from further ageing and integration of the brut dosage."
"Full bottle 1,602 g. Early harvest from 27 August to 8 September. The main component, 80% of the blend, is Pinot Noir from Verzy, supplemented by 20% Chardonnay from Chouilly. 28% of the base wine saw oak, 20% of it went through malo. The 2018 is described as ‘the end of an era’ because the Pinot Noir on north-facing vines in Verzy now achieves such phenolic ripeness that it is possible to make a wine entirely from these grapes. The 2019 vintage is a Blanc de Noirs, something Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon has wanted to do for many years. ‘La Montagne’ is cited on the back label, a reference to the fact that all the grapes came from their vineyards on the Montagne de Reims (as opposed to ‘La Côte’ for the Côte des Blancs vineyards and ‘La Rivière’ for their vineyards in the Vallée de la Marne). Dosage 7 g/l. Extremely intense nose with an explosion of life. Light smokiness and crème patissière. By no means bone dry, in fact the fruit is positively exuberant. Like a rich lemon mousse. I like it!"
OUR GROWERS
Louis Roederer
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