Anthony Rose enjoys a vertical tasting of Pol Roger Vintage and Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill from the new Vinothèque range.
On the news that he been voted The Drinks Business Man of the Year 2024 at the London Wine Fair in May this year, Laurent d’Harcourt paid tribute to 175 years of continuity at Champagne Pol Roger. “Thanks to previous generations, we are a family business standing with our feet planted firmly in the 21st century and we are ready for the future,” he declared. With his gangling, Giacometti-esque figure and size-15 shoes, d’Harcourt, the grandly titled président du directoire, took the accolade in his lengthy stride. After years of careful planning and construction, Pol Roger’s new Epernay cellars represent the culmination of an exceptional achievement.
As luck would have it, Pol Roger’s 175th anniversary coincides with the 150th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s birth. The entente cordiale stretches back to the shipping of dry styles of Champagne from 1853 tailored to the English market, leading to the grant of its first Royal Warrant by Queen Victoria in 1877. It’s Churchill, though, who embodies the relationship that has made Pol Roger the most quintessentially British of Champagnes, “redolent of age and tradition, demanding even!” (their words, not mine). So, it was fitting that, on June 25, Paul Rafferty’s bronze sculpture of the great leader painting his famous Bottlescape (1926) was unveiled by Lord Soames, Randolph Churchill, and Hubert de Billy, fifth-generation member of Pol Roger. Beside an ice bucket with a bottle of 1928 Pol Roger Brut, Churchill now welcomes visitors to what he described, with his characteristic pithiness, as “the most drinkable address in the world.”
Reconstruction and renewal have been baked into the DNA of the house since the day Pol Roger founded the company in Aÿ in 1849, at the tender age of 17. The move to Epernay two years later was followed by another upheaval in 1872, when he bought a plot of land on Rue Croix de Bussy to build a large house with extended cellars and storerooms. Dramatically, two months after his death, a huge chunk of the cellars collapsed, on February 23, 1900, in a roar that Maurice Roger, Pol Roger’s son, described as “the sound of two trains colliding.” Some, 1.5 million bottles were lost, and 500 barrels—containing almost the entire 1899 harvest—were destroyed. Yet thanks to a Samaritan-like rescue operation by Mercier and Moët & Chandon, and to the resilience of Roger’s two sons, Maurice and Georges, a new cellar was inaugurated on January 20, 1903. By 1905, they were exporting half a million bottles.
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The Pol-Rogers opened new cellars on Epernay’s Avenue de Champagne in 1933. The first modern reconstruction of Pol Roger began under Jean Pol-Roger and Christian de Billy, who were keen to have greater control of their sourcing. They took advantage of new appellation boundaries in the 1950s that allowed those with little or no vineyards of their own to invest. Since that time, the holding has been built up to 94ha (232 acres) of vineyards, dotted around the key areas of the Côte des Blancs, the Montagne de Reims, and the Vallée de la Marne, which supply 40% of their needs. The remaining 60% comes from 130-odd growers and partners, supervised from the Epernay HQ by Lucile Pérard.
For many years, Pol Roger was producing a million bottles, rising to 1.5 million and, over the past 15 years, to 2 million bottles, with an increase in sourcing from mostly grand and premier cru vineyards. While the new production facility built at 32 Avenue de Champagne in the late ’60s was modern at the time, it was not designed to suit the needs of a company keen to reach new heights of quality and quantity in the 21st century. The family began to dream of a new production facility in the immediate vicinity of where the cellars had collapsed.
The arrival of Patrice Noyelle as MD in 1997 was the catalyst for a lock, stock (and no barrel) modernization of the winemaking facilities and the 4.5 miles (7.5km) of cellars on the Avenue de Champagne. “First, we must refurbish the kitchen,” Noyelle had said. Under the supervision of Dominique Petit, who joined the house from Krug in 1999, Pol Roger launched a plan to improve the technical aspects of the winemaking. The oak barriques originally used by the family had been gradually replaced by enamel-lined steel since the 1950s, but Petit oversaw the installation of 188 stainless-steel vats. He considered these essential in maintaining freshness and highlighting the unique character of each terroir. Petit also progressively reduced the dosage from 2002 onward—a change designed to enhance Pol Roger’s typical freshness and elegance.
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Comprehensive renewal
Noyelle’s retirement in 2013 was only the end of the first chapter of comprehensive renewal sought by the family. The impetus for the next stages had begun following the arrival of Laurent d’Harcourt in January 2006 as export director. D’Harcourt was previously with Bruno Paillard in 1996 and, before that, Ropiteau in Burgundy. He was born in Burgundy, “so I have Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in my blood,” he says. In March 2016, Pol Roger worked with CICAL to convert their production needs into a construction project. The challenge for the architect Giovanni Pace was to integrate the new production site as harmoniously as possible with the existing facilities. “Pol Roger is Epernay and must remain in Epernay,” said d’Harcourt. After two years of soil studies and research, work on the construction on the large land reserve close to its offices and cellars began in early 2020.
Although Dominique Petit had announced his retirement in 2018, he had continued to work with Damien Cambres, who joined the house in 2017 and succeeded him as chef de cave the following year. Cambres was born in 1973 in Châlons and comes from a family of farmers. In 1996, he received his diploma at the Dijon School of Oenology. He was fascinated by the scientific side of wine, working first as an intern at Champagne Nicolas Feuillatte before taking a job there as a locum in 1997. He was put in charge of riddling and disgorgement, becoming head of production from 2004 until 2012, eventually making Champagne Paul Goerg and Barons de Rothschild at the Goutte d’Or co-op in Vertus, before joining Pol Roger.
By coincidence, a substantial chunk of history came to light, literally, when dozens of bottles swallowed up in the 1900 collapse were unearthed during the construction process in 2018. They uncovered the buried stash by drilling through the walls and reaching a space that was enlarged to make a bigger hole. The raiders of the new lost ark managed to retrieve nearly 100 bottles that, remarkably, were still intact, albeit with varying neck levels. Two bottles, most likely from 1895 and 1897, were opened, and the amber liquid inside was tasted at the cellars in 2019 by a group of fortunate wine journalists. “Both wines had real purity and quite unbelievably were a pleasure to drink,” declared Peter Dean, editor of The Buyer.
The new production site, an investment of €50 million ($55 million), was officially inaugurated on April 19 this year by Henri Prévost, prefect of the Marne department, Franck Leroy, president of the Grand Est region, and Christine Mazy, mayor of Epernay. It is spread across four levels, with the deepest for the storage of bottled wine on lees in metal racks, ready to be riddled by gyropalettes. The next floor up, on ground level, contains an automated line for disgorgement and dosage, equipped with jetting technology. The liquorerie, the dosage room, is kept at a constant 54°F (12°C). After disgorgement, bottles enter refrigerated storage, ending up in metallic cages with a post-disgorgement capacity of close to a million disgorged wines, twice as large as before. A minimum of two to three months stock is held for Brut NV, five to six months for Vintage, and longer for Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill, before dispatch to 100 countries.
The first floor is dedicated to labeling, packaging, and shipping. The new labeling line now has a back label with a QR code, lot number, and date of disgorgement, together with an archive of historic labels. The upper floor is for the storage of dry goods, boxes, gift boxes, and corks, including an integrated tube-slide for corks to travel to the production site. There is a new tunnel with access to the historic cellars. In addition to temperature- and humidity-control and high-performance insulation, the site is connected to the Epernay municipal hot-water network, eliminating the need for Pol Roger to have its own gas heating system. Some 1.5 million bottles a year are hand-riddled by 40 riddlers, with new gyropalettes brought in to deal with the remaining half million bottles.
The building is supported by 298 concrete pillars that descend 115ft (35m) below ground to support the structure on the capricious terrain, a fail-safe foundation designed to ensure (and reassure) that there will never be another traumatic collapse like the 1900 disaster. Through the ergonomic design, the automation of certain functions is aimed at keeping otherwise difficult tasks to a minimum and improving working conditions. A separate area contains large tanks of quality-graded reserves going back to 2018, each kept in separate lots showing grape variety and origin and used mainly for the 25% of reserve wine that goes into Pol Roger NV White Foil.
Sustainable and venerable
After excessive rain and damaging mildew in 2021, 95% of the young vines planted over 1.5ha (3.7 acres) died. Two years ago, Pol Roger embarked on a project to examine the soil and, in particular, the impact of agricultural machinery in order to prepare better for planting new vines. Large pits were dug to examine the composition of the soil and the roots and to look for earthworms, which aerate the soil. Initial findings showed the soil to be seriously compacted. The roots, with little or no microorganic life in the soil, were unable to penetrate the chalk. As a result, they remained close to the surface, in just 12–24in (30–60cm) of topsoil. Now, drip irrigation and BRF (bois raméal fragmenté—young wood chips) in combination, plus fertigation, have helped to aerate and nourish the soils for better root penetration.
Lucile Pérard, Pol Roger’s vineyard manager, has created a map of all the growers and their holdings, including Pol Roger’s own vineyards. Visiting before the harvest, she advises, takes measurements, checks the color of the grapes, and tastes. She explains to the growers the growing cycle and the components of acid, sugars, tannins, anthocyanins, and weight, to get to the time window of fresh fruits, avoiding both the vegetal and the overripe. Since a growing number of suppliers are certified HVE (haute valeur environnementale) and VDC (viticulture durable en Champagne), the commitment is to get all Pol Roger’s partners on board by 2030.
In the new plantings of 2.5ha (6 acres) of Chardonnay (previously Meunier) at Mont Bernon in Epernay, the ground was prepared by plowing with a donkey. The roots descended 3ft (1 m) between April and October last year. As part of the sustainability protocol, vines are protected from destructive male butterflies not with pesticides but with “sexual confusion,” a technique involving placing diffusers among the vines and saturating the air with pheromones in order to disturb their reproductive patterns. The vineyards are certified HVE and VDC, the latter being stricter than HVE in minimizing the impact of viticulture on the environment. “Organic is more complicated,” says grower Christophe Martin. “If it rains a lot, as in 2021 and 2023, it’s hard to control the mildew and oidium.”
The weather in 2017, 2021, and 2023 induced indifferent harvests, and there will be no Vintage Champagne from Pol Roger from the 2023 vintage. Acutely conscious of climate change, d’Harcourt and Cambres have taken a number of steps to protect grapes from both oxidation and excessive heat, including improved grape storage, the transport of must, and better controls at the 67 supplying pressing centers. After pressing and settling, the liquid must is transferred to the cellars, where it is settled for a second time. Cellar improvements include smaller tanks adapted to individual parcels, jetting technology carried out since 2019, and temperature-control of individual tanks and air conditioning. The wines undergo a full malolactic fermentation, and despite climate change, d’Harcourt believes that quality and freshness are at an all-time high.
One of the most strikingly distinctive features of Pol Roger is the sheer number of wines held in the cellars post-disgorgement. The extensive library had contained several hundred bottles of each vintage, shown for lunches or dinners, receptions and vertical tastings—and the odd one or two for home consumption. Thanks to outstanding cellar conditions for maturation, the wines were aging well. So much so that, in recognition of the growing appreciation by customers for a more mature Champagne style, d’Harcourt made the decision to keep back an increasing number of bottles from each vintage in order to be able to release some of the disgorged library wines to share with customers with a view to creating an entirely new category of Pol Roger—namely Vinothèque.
This year sees the release of the new Vinothèque range: a 2000 Vintage Blanc de Blancs, a 2000 and 2002 Brut Vintage, two Cuvées Sir Winston Churchill from the 1998 and 1999 vintages—made, like all Sir Winston Churchill cuvées, exclusively from grands crus in the Montagne de Reims and Côte des Blancs—and a 1999 Rosé. Brut Vintage and Churchill will also be released in limited magnum editions. This year’s release will be followed next year by the release of a 2002 Blanc de Blancs, a 2004 Vintage, and a 2000 Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill. “With condition guaranteed, keeping wines for 10–15 years in the cellar is a cost to us and a value to the consumer,” says d’Harcourt. Allocation depends on the size of the market. “Some markets will get a generous allocation of three magnums,” he grins.
D’Harcourt is at pains to stress Pol Roger’s strong connection with the UK, which, with close to one in five bottles sold there, is Pol Roger’s number-one export market. “Pol Roger is a bit British, and our importer is our own company.” Pol Roger has the royal seal from Queen Elizabeth II until March 2025 and, since receiving a request from King Charles to apply for royal appointment, started working on an application. The new building and sustainability in the vineyards are very much part of that process—one that should appeal to the environmentally conscious king. An application for the royal appointment has now been made, and d’Harcourt and the team are keeping their fingers crossed that Pol Roger will soon be hearing from His Majesty with positive news.
Tasting
2018 Pol Roger Brut
A blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay from 20 grand and premier cru vineyards in the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Blancs, disgorged in December 2023, this is a pale lemon in color, fresh in aroma, with notes of citrus and spice. With four years on the lees, and a dosage of 7g/l, it displays a fine mousse and richness of texture, finishing, despite the vintage of lowish acidity, with a tangy trace of bitterness that keeps it poised and very much alive. | 92
Pol Roger Pure Extra Brut
With one third each of Pinot Noir, Meunier, and Chardonnay, and no dosage, after four years on the lees this blend is super-fresh, with a candied-lemon aroma and a soft cushion of bubbles delivering mouthwatering, lemon-sherbet acidity. It’s beautifully balanced and delightfully crisp and bone-dry, yet with no sharp edges—one to drink with Japanese food and seafood. | 92
2002 Pol Roger Brut Vinothèque Cuvée de Réserve
This blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay, disgorged in 2013 with 8g/l dosage, is mid-gold in color, exquisitely fresh and aromatic, hinting at truffle and toast in the bouquet. Then a surprisingly lively, expansive mousse explodes in tiny luxurious bubbles across the tongue, bursting with citrus and stone-fruit flavors and background biscuity notes. All is underpinned by a zesty, refreshing acidity for perfect balance. | 97
2000 Pol Roger Brut Blanc de Blancs Vinothèque Cuvée de Réserve
Disgorged in 2011, this pure Chardonnay from grands crus in the Côte des Blancs is a youthful pale gold in color, with a complex bouquet comprising a zesty mandarin freshness backed by farm butter on toast. On tasting, that zesty citrus fruit is enveloped by a gentle, foaming mousse, with background notes of truffle, spice, and toast behind, yet it is still amazingly fresh and vinous, finishing with a savory flourish. | 95
2000 Pol Roger Brut Vinothèque Cuvée de Réserve
Disgorged in 2011, this blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay from 20 grand and premier cru vineyards in the Montagne de Reims and Côte des Blancs is pale gold, with floral and candied-lemon aromas. A honeyed, oxidative note combines with a striking attack of bubbles to reveal dried citrus-fruit flavors, allied to a lightly smoky character with lemon-rind notes in an expansive mousse. | 93
1999 Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill Vinothèque Cuvée de Réserve
Dominic Petit’s first vintage, 1999, was a solar year, and with its rounded softness, it was initially thought that it might lack the capacity to age. Far from it. Disgorged in March 2013, this Pinot Noir-dominated blend is a rich golden hue, fresh, slightly smoky, with hints of mandarin; complex and deeply vinous, with the hint of an oxidative, Fino-like note and light toast. There is a pristine, dried-stone-fruit purity and power, its rich peachy tones undercut by an orchard-apple bite of crisp acidity that supports a rounded texture and dry finish. | 95
1998 Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill Vinothèque Cuvée de Réserve
Disgorged in 2008, this typically Pinot Noir-dominant blend is mid-gold, rich in aroma, and has a light toastiness and a nuttiness that’s Puligny-like, almost as if there were oak (yet there isn’t). Remarkably fresh—even fresher than the 1999—it’s chock-full of powerful stone-fruit flavors, with a fresh attack of explosive bubbles on the tongue, its expansive mousse delivering powerful flavors and richness with background truffley notes. There is a remarkable tension here between tangy fruit, textured mousse, and striking linear acidity. | 97
1973 Pol Roger Brut Champagne
Disgorged between 2013 and 2015, this venerable, super-mature Pol Roger Vintage blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay is a rich golden shade, with a remarkably fresh bouquet and a gentle, stately flow of bubbles. A wine that’s just about still holding its sparkle, it remains full of lively, zesty acidity, and drunk with Epoisses, it turned out to be umami heaven, the savory cheese complementing and enhancing the equally savory bubbles. | 94
