Champagne Ruinart, Rosé, Brut

Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Raspberries and white pepper. Quite sweet – there is something that evokes a long-distant memory of strawberry jelly babies. Pretty fruit and a good, broad swathe of ripe acidity, but lacks the complexity and stature I'd expect of a champagne in this price bracket. It might taste better with a slice of strawberry tart?

Drink 2023 - 2027

The latest rendition of Ruinart's NV Brut Rosé is a lovely, vibrant wine that offers inviting aromas of tangerine, blood orange, plum and freshly baked bread. Medium to full-bodied, fleshy and precise, tangy acids and a lovely mousse, it's a ca-harming, comparatively vinous wine already showing well.

Drink 2021 - 2031

A blend of 55% Pinot Noir and 45% Chardonnay, and featuring around 25% reserve wines, this is 100% premier cru fruit from the Montagne des Reims and Côte des Blancs. Almost a third of the Pinot Noir was vinified as a still wine. A deep coral colour, this is fresh and youthful, with rounded wild red berry fruit, and a hint of rose. With some time in the glass, it develops deeper, more complex, more exotic notes, leading to a long and lively finish.

Drink 2021 - 2026

Light orange. Sharply focused red berry and tangerine scents are complicated by suggestions of allspice and cinnamon, with a hint of smokiness in the background. Sappy and minerally on the palate, offering fresh strawberry and blood orange flavours lifted by juicy acidity. It packs a serious punch but carries no excess weight and finishes stony and very long, with an echoing red berry character.

An enticing properly dry rosé with a slew of red berry aromas, including wild strawberries, but behind this is the structure of a serious Chardonnay from the chalky soils of this region and it is the chalky texture that anchors this on the long finish.