Starck-Roederer: The Exciting New Releases

The collaboration between designer Philippe Starck and Champagne house Louis Roederer has been extant since the 2006 vintage. Starck’s enjoyment of the zero dosage (no sugar added) style of Champagne inspired the partnership: a sleek bottle design by Starck, and a special champagne created by Roederer cellar master Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon. The understated packaging of the 2018 vintage reflects the purity and clarity of diction expressed in the 2018 versions of these exceptional wines.

The Starck wines are no standard Roederer blend. All the fruit comes from one, well-exposed vineyard in the Marne valley village of Cumières. Here, Roederer has planted all seven permitted Champagne varieties in a sunny location, where they ripen well, an important consideration when there are no mellowing effects of added sugar. The wines have only been made in hot, dry vintages; the 2018 follows the 2012 and 2015 in recent times.

Both wines are made from a blend of the three principal Champagne varieties, along with 1% of Pinot Blanc, a rising star in the Champagne firmament. The style? Dry, taut and mineral with a silky carapace of fruit overlaying the structural skeleton. The bottle design is poised and elegant; the wines yet more so.