La Rogerie is a small independent Champagne producer operating across the Grand Cru villages of the Côte des Blancs, producing site-specific Blanc de Blancs Champagnes from estate-farmed Chardonnay vines with an emphasis on terroir expression and extended lees ageing. The domaine’s Héroïne cuvée is its prestige Blanc de Blancs millésimé, a wine produced only in exceptional vintages and aged for a significantly longer period than the standard releases before disgorgement. The Extra Brut dosage classification reflects the producer’s preference for allowing the wine’s primary character to express itself without the moderating influence of substantial residual sweetness.

The 2015 Champagne vintage is considered one of the finest of the decade, producing base wines of exceptional ripeness, aromatic complexity and natural balance across the appellation. In the Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs villages of the Côte des Blancs, where the chalk subsoils and cool easterly exposures moderate even warm vintages, 2015 produced Chardonnay base wines of extraordinary concentration and mineral precision. A millésimé Blanc de Blancs from this vintage, having spent eight or more years on the lees before disgorgement, will have accumulated considerable autolytic complexity in addition to the primary citrus and chalk character for which the Côte des Blancs is celebrated.

Vintage Blanc de Blancs from the Grand Cru villages of the Côte des Blancs represents one of the most compelling categories in all of Champagne, combining the terroir precision of single-village production with the depth and complexity that extended lees ageing and vintage conditions provide. La Rogerie’s Héroïne occupies a position within this category as a serious, cellar-worthy expression of what a gifted small producer can achieve from the appellation’s finest Chardonnay terroir in a remarkable vintage year.

Pale gold with fine persistent bubbles and a complex nose of white peach, lemon curd, toasted brioche, white flowers, chalk and a long-lees mineral complexity from extended ageing. Medium-bodied on the palate with excellent natural acidity, a creamy refined mousse and a very long, mineral, bone-dry finish. Best from 2024 through 2033.

The 2015 Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs Héroïne Avize Grand Cru was made in stainless steel. The nose reveals a gentle hint of waxy apple skin and melted candlewax, broadening out into Golden Delicious apple flesh with some wet polenta. The palate is rounded, speaks of the warm 2015 vintage with its mellowness, altogether this is looser, less focused than the dreamy 2014. The saltiness and the complexity are there, but not the essential tension. The finish is rich and smooth with soft umami and an apple pip bitterness, definitely for the table. - Vinous