Pol Roger Blanc de Blancs 2000

Pale straw shot through with delicate green. Fruit dominates the nose, a veritable basket of ripe fruit, or candied lemon and grapefruit with a subtle backbone of freshness and minerality. Finesse and purity are this wine’s signature.

On the palate a warmer aspect, typical of the vintage, appears: fleshy fruit sits happily alongside notes of vanilla, cinnamon and marshmallow giving a lovely complexity to the whole. The wine is round and mouth filling with great balance.

The Brut Blanc de Blancs 2000 from Champagne Pol Roger is a classic blanc de blancs, vinified 100% from Chardonnay grapes selected from Grand Cru vineyards (many owned by Pol Roger) in the Côte des Blancs: Cramant, Chouilly, Oger, Avize and Oiry. The Blanc de Blancs, as with all the other Pol Roger wines, undergoes the traditional hand remuage.

Produced only in limited quantities the Brut Blanc de Blancs is aged 9 years in cellars before being released to the market.

Grape Variety:

100% Chardonnay

Dosage - 10.5 g/l

Serving:

Excellent as an apéritif, but has enough structure to accompany fish.

Background Information:

Pol Roger, a Champenois from Aÿ, founded his champagne house in Epemay in 1849. Over the next 50 years, until his death in 1899, he built his business into one of the most respected in Champagne and, in particular, forged strong trade links with Britain. The founder was succeeded by his sons, Maurice and Georges, who changed their names to Pol-Roger by deed poll and, thereafter, by a further three generations of his direct descendants. To this day the company remains small, family-owned, fiercely independent and unrivalled in its reputation for quality

Pol Roger own 87 hectares of prime vineyard sites spread over the Montagne de Reims, the Vallée de Ia Marme, the Vallée d'Epemay and the Côte des Blancs. This supply is supplemented by grapes purchased on long-term contracts with growers based on the best sites in the region. Total production at Pol Roger is in the region of 1.5 million bottles per annum, making them one of the smaller of the Grandes Marques.

The cellars extend some 7 kilometres beneath the streets of Epernay and are carved out of the local chalk over three levels, the deepest known as the ‘cave de prise de mousse’ at 33m below street level. As the name suggests this is where the wine undergoes its secondary fermentation in bottle. This deep cellar is at 9° or less, rather than a normal cellar temperature of 11-12°, thus prolonging this fermentation.

They are amongst the coolest and deepest cellars in the region, a factor which contributes to the famously fine bubbles in Pol Roger's champagnes.