Description
Pol Roger Pure Extra Brut NV 750ml is the house’s undosed non-vintage Champagne, a bone-dry style from Pol Roger in Épernay. Three grape varieties go in, in equal proportions, with each variety and village vinified separately until the final blend, and no sugar is added at dosage.
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Serve well chilled, around 8°C, in a tulip glass. Pol Roger recommends sweet, firm, fleshy foods, especially simply prepared shellfish, and gives the example of a crayfish, lobster and crab salad dressed with olive oil and hazelnut vinegar.
- Undosed non-vintage Champagne
- Three varieties in equal proportions
- Base wines aged for at least four years
Dense, shining and golden with fine bubbles, the wine has a mature nose of clove, rose, bread crumb, yeast and citrus. The palate contrasts with that, starting straight and fine, then firm and well structured, and the finish returns to honey and clove with good length.
Most Champagnes receive a small addition of sugar after disgorgement, known as the dosage. Leaving it out, as Pol Roger does here, means there is nothing to soften the wine’s acidity, so the base wines have to be ready on their own. The house says these are aged for at least four years, a long time for a non-vintage wine, and that gives the blend its mature aromatics.
After blending and bottling, the wine goes through secondary fermentation and maturation in the cellars, 33 metres below street level. Each bottle is riddled by hand and then disgorged, and it rests for at least three months before release. The three grapes are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier, the same trio as the Brut Réserve.
Pol Roger lists this wine in its range under the Brut Nature category, the term for Champagne with no added sugar. The family firm dates to 1849, and this wine is one of its three non-vintage releases, alongside Réserve and Rich.
Worth a look for anyone who drinks Champagne very dry, or who wants to compare an undosed style with the house’s Brut.
