Charles Heidsieck’s vintage Rosé Millésimé is the house’s most serious and age-worthy pink Champagne, produced from a selection of the finest vintage material and aged at length in the house’s cellars before release. The wine is produced from Pinot Noir sourced predominantly from Bouzy, one of Champagne’s premier Grand Cru red wine villages, with Chardonnay from Vertus in the Côte des Blancs, a blend that combines the power and red fruit intensity of Montagne de Reims Pinot Noir with the precision and structure of Côte des Blancs Chardonnay. James Suckling awarded the 2018 95 points, describing the wine as “rich and delicious with sliced-strawberry and pie-crust aromas and flavours with hints of cooked butter,” praising its “layers of fruit and fine bubbles” and noting that the wine was “more like a delicate red on the palate” in its seriousness and depth. The dosage at 9 g/L places the wine in the Extra Brut category, ensuring that the natural character of the Champagne region’s finest vintage expression is allowed to speak without the moderating influence of heavy dosage.

The 2018 Champagne vintage was exceptional: a warm and consistent growing season produced base wines of outstanding ripeness, natural balance and aromatic precision that have been praised by all critics as one of the finest recently made available for vintage Champagne production. For Charles Heidsieck, whose house style is defined by a longer-than-average reserve wine programme and a commitment to extended lees ageing, the 2018 base material offers an extraordinary foundation for a Rosé Millésimé of genuine vinous depth and ageing potential. Bouzy Pinot Noir in 2018, with the vintage’s combination of warmth and freshness, will have provided the rich, structured red fruit character that the wine’s description confirms.

Charles Heidsieck’s Rosé Millésimé is the house’s most limited and cellar-worthy rosé Champagne, and the 2018’s 95-point James Suckling score confirms the vintage’s exceptional quality at the most serious level of the house’s portfolio. For collectors of Charles Heidsieck’s work and for those who seek vintage rosé Champagne of genuine vinous ambition from a house with documented and celebrated Champagne expertise, the 2018 is an outstanding acquisition.

Pale salmon with fine, persistent bubbles and a generous and complex nose of sliced strawberry, pie crust, cooked butter, rose, citrus and a fine chalk mineral note from the Champagne soils. Full-bodied with excellent depth of flavour, fine acidity, a vinous richness from the Bouzy Pinot Noir and a long, dry, mineral finish. Best now through 2032.

Rich and delicious with sliced-strawberry and pie-crust aromas and flavours with hints of cooked butter. Full-bodied with layers of fruit and fine bubbles. More like a delicate red on the palate. Pinot noir from Bouzy and chardonnay mostly from Vertus. — James Suckling