Our Provenance Guarantee
Purchase with confidence. All of our wines are selectively sourced and thoroughly inspected for authenticity and signs of poor storage. Accepted bottles are preserved in our climate-controlled cellar until they reach your doorstep. We have no storefront and no walk-in traffic, so nothing is moved or handled between inspection and shipping.
The bottle you see photographed is the bottle you receive (or fundamentally identical when multiple bottles are listed), and our commitment to you is that it arrives as represented. If it doesn’t, we want to hear from you.
Ratings & Tasting Notes:
95 points — Wine Advocate (Robert Parker, December 1994)
No tasting note was published with this score.
93.9 points — CellarTracker community average, 42 user reviews
A member tasting it in November 2025 scored it 97 points. Deep golden-yellow in colour, with a surprisingly generous mousse, plenty of fine bubbles and pleasantly softened acidity. Showing some age with roasted almond, baked apple, ripe pineapple, baking spice and buttery brioche. Medium-bodied on the palate, medium acidity, still effervescent, and in his judgement outstanding at this point in time.
A March 2025 note scored it 95 points and is worth reading in full. The taster had assumed Cristal was not a wine that aged, finding his 1990s mostly tired — but not this 1988, which showed subdued energy and burnished gold, brown butter and hazelnut flavours that only extended age can bring. He notes it retained its sweetness of fruit, creamy texture and bright acidity while adding the layers of earth and roasted nuts that come with age, calling it a dialled-in older Champagne.
Cult Wines International Notes:
Louis Roederer was founded in Reims in 1776 and remains one of the rare family-owned houses in Champagne, still directed by the Roederer family. It is also among the very few to own the large majority of its own vineyards, a degree of self-sufficiency almost unheard of in the region. Cristal was created in 1876 for Tsar Alexander II, who is said to have requested a clear flat-bottomed bottle so that no assassin could conceal a device beneath it — the origin of the flat base and clear glass the bottle still carries, wrapped since in its protective amber cellophane. It is made only in declared vintages, from the house’s oldest and best-sited parcels.
1988 was by most accounts an excellent Champagne vintage. A warm spring and hot June gave successful budburst and flowering, and the cooler, damper July that followed preserved acidity rather than pushing toward ripeness — the combination that produces the structured, slow-developing wines the year is known for. The 1988 Cristal has repaid that structure. It is deep golden-yellow with a generous, fine mousse, showing roasted almond, hazelnut, baked apple, ripe pineapple, white flowers, baking spice, buttery brioche and brown butter, with the burnished earthy layers that only long bottle age confers. The fruit retains a real sweetness and the texture is creamy, with acidity still bright beneath. Fully mature and drinking now.
Bottle Size:
750 mL
Storage History:
Perfectly stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar. These bottles were kept in their original shipping boxes and never opened until we received them.
Condition:
Outstanding condition as shown. Color has darkened due to 30+ years of cellaring.
Please watch the video below to see these bottles being opened and unveiled for the first time since release.
Please note: The condition of the bottle you will receive is accurately reflected by the one shown in the images.
