REVIEW § Prestige Cuvée Rosé with Marina Olsson


Simon Field MW reports from an inspiring tasting of the best examples of a style that is being taken increasingly (and deservedly) seriously


to make a Non-Vintage Cuvée until 2008, several decades after the death of the family’s eponymous matriarch, who was not, we infer, a great fan. Best left to the Folies Bergère or, heaven forfend, to the Moulin Rouge (Moulin Rosé?!). And as for Vintage Rosé…well, there we have had an amusing oxymoron to ponder. Much, it seems, has changed, and now the sighting of the oeil de perdrix can be a source of great fascination. And pleasure. Marina Olsson, the celebrated Swedish collector and leading light in the Gomseglet Wine and Champagne Connoisseurs Club, has little time for the traps and trappings of reputation. Rosé Champagne has featured many times in her tastings (including recent standalone events for Belle Époque, Clos des Goisses Juste, and William Deutz, inter alia). Why not devote a day to a selection of the very best of the so-called Prestige Rosés? Why not indeed. Off to Malmo we go, once more, one economy flight all that is required to score nine flights of pure indulgence. There are eight houses on show, on October 19, 2024: Billecart- Salmon, Boizel, Deutz, Laurent-Perrier, Moët et Chandon, Rare, Taittinger, and De Venoge, each flying a quartet of their finest pink Champagne. Oh, and there is also an amuse bouche flight that Marina entitles, beguilingly, “Red Carpet.” The tasters include Gilles de la Bassetière, who runs De Venoge, and Benoît Gouez, the chef de caves at Moët et Chandon. A highly qualified group of tasters, then, and, as it turns out, some very high scores. Rosé Champagne has come a long


R


way, clearly. No longer an “off-cut” from the Non-Vintage blend treated to a haphazard period of skin maceration, or, worse, blended with a de facto Coteaux Champenois. The whole category has


76 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025


osé Champagne has taken some time to shake off a reputation for frivolity. Bollinger did not presume


Above: Marina Olsson, as generous, warm and welcoming as she is discerning and passionate.


(maybe temporarily) plateaued at 10–11% of production, but the nature and quality of that production has hugely improved, the source of the fruit now seen as key and the nature of the vinification of the red component essential to the ensuing style. “Bubbles do not like tannins,” says Benoît, and tannin management is fundamental to the structural integrity of the final wine. Much work has been done on clones and yeasts, not to mention the extraction methodology and temperature control. If that means, as Benoît concedes, that finally less red is needed (Moët Grand Vintage now hovers around 13% of added red wine; it used to be closer to 19%), then so be it. More important is the provenance of the red grapes; Aÿ for Moët, Le Colin in Bouzy for Veuve, and Mareuil-sur-Aÿ for Deutz but three examples, with many others opting for the Kimmeridgian soils of the Aube, in Les Riceys in particular. Sound provenance and then specialized red winemaking are now both sacrosanct.


If one gets the red wine right, then control over color will ensue. Distinctive and familiar house styles were confirmed (Cristal Rosé is lightly pigmented, for example, whereas Taittinger is always darker), but even more important, perhaps, was the color consistency in each flight, with the natural “lightening” over time sometimes hard to discern. The older Amour de Deutz wines, for example, were maybe a little paler, but key was the generic similarity; the delicate onion skin to soft copper coloring that marks out the house identity. More precision, in other words. Benoît points out that today’s winemaking tends to be more reductive than of yore, which is certainly the case with his imperious lineup of six Moët Grand Vintages. Marina is impressed by the consistency of house style, the magisterial Billecart-Salmon being an excellent example, silky yet subtly and deftly structured, or maybe the ineffably elegant Comtes de Champagne, albeit less so for the two bottles that are found to be corked, alas…the only disappointment of the whole tasting! Only Rare, with a mere four releases under its belt, appears still to be searching for a house style. Personally, I preferred the tighter, more reduced style of the ’08 and the ’12, although both the ’07 and the ’14 had a natural charm. Seductive and magical, all four.


There are, then, a great many variables


in play, as Gilles reminds us. Oak for the fermentation and/or maturation? Why not, in moderation (5 or 10%) avows Benoît. What about the age-old debate between maceration and assemblage, the latter often perceived as more “precise,” the former (maybe) more authentic. Adam Guy, the cerebral MD of Laurent- Perrier UK, is also in our midst, and is, unsurprisingly, an advocate for the virtues of maceration. He is on a strong wicket, given that all six of his magnums of Cuvée Alexandra are showing superbly and, as


Photography courtesy of Marina Olsson


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