Ratings & Tasting Notes:

94 points — International Wine Cellar (Stephen Tanzer), November 2004
A very fresh, complex nose combining soft citrus fruits, toast and minerals, with hints of red berries. Penetrating, bright and very intense, with powerful citrus and mineral flavours that turn sweeter toward the back end. The chewy finish of pear and hazelnut really stains the palate. Ultimately quite pliant and harmonious, in the style of the year.

94 points — Wine Enthusiast, December 2004
In its famous clear bottle, one of the best known prestige cuvées and also the oldest, first made in 1876 for the Russian Tsars. A very fine wine in a great tradition, revealing elegance, flavours of red fruits and impressive complexity from the blending. The aftertaste is extraordinary, going on seemingly into the distant horizon.

92 points — John Gilman, April 2018
Gilman notes the 1997 season was damp and cool through August before a scorching September, leaving grapes very high in malic acidity — and that, per Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, there was no malolactic fermentation in the Cristal base wines that year. A very pretty wine for current drinking, offering a reasonably mature, transparent and classy nose of apple, lemon zest, a touch of smokiness, chalky soil tones, fresh almonds and a whisper of honeycomb. Deep, fullish and à point on the palate, with refined mousse and very good length and grip on a complex finish, though with a touch less depth than most recent vintages of the cuvée.

92 points — Wine Advocate, December 2005
Aromatically demure, the rich, full-bodied 1997 is densely packed with ripe pears and apples alongside toast. An exceptionally vinous Champagne that could easily replace a white Burgundy at the table.

90 points — Vinous

Cult Wines International Notes:

Cristal was created in 1876 for Tsar Alexander II, who asked Louis Roederer to set aside the house’s finest cuvée for his court each year. The flat-bottomed bottle of clear lead crystal was made to his specification, so nothing could be concealed beneath it. The house remains family-owned, unusual in Champagne, and owns most of the vineyards its grapes come from, some 240 hectares across the Montagne de Reims, the Côte des Blancs and the Vallée de la Marne. Cristal is drawn from the chalkiest parcels and oldest vines among those holdings, farmed biodynamically and often by horse, declared only in worthy years, and given six years in the Reims cellars plus eight months in bottle after disgorgement.

1997 was a testing season: a cold winter, spring frosts, then a warm early summer undercut by cool, wet weather through flowering. September turned scorching, and the small crop picked from the twelfth carried both ripeness and unusually high malic acidity. Roederer’s response was to put the Cristal base wines through no malolactic fermentation at all that year, preserving the tension. The result is a Champagne of pliant, harmonious character rather than sheer power. Expect a fresh, complex nose of soft citrus, apple, pear, toast and chalky minerals, with red-berry hints, fresh almond, smokiness and a whisper of honeycomb. Deep and fullish on the palate, with refined mousse, powerful citrus and mineral flavours turning sweeter at the back, and a chewy pear-and-hazelnut finish.

Bottle Size:

750 mL

Storage History:

Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.

Condition:

Please note: The bottle shown is the exact bottle being sold.

Excellent condition. Backlit inspection shows a bright, golden wine with a fill level well up into the neck, and no visible seepage. Some extremely fine micro-sediment is visible, entirely normal in Champagne of this age. Clarity is perfect once settled.