Fabulous nose with great blood orange intensity neatly framed by brioche. On the extravagant and concentrated palate this has whiplash vibrancy yet somehow marries this to a taut elegance. Extremely long finish with dangerous freshness for this age! Literally takes your breath away. Tasted at the Cristal vertical tasting at the champagne house on July 6th, 2023. Drink or hold. - Stuart Pigott

The 2005 Cristal is a legend in the making, but this wine is still very young and closed and some extended bottle age will be necessary to really allow all of the multi-faceted elements here to blossom and come to the fore. The cépages is the same as the 2006, fifty-five percent pinot noir and forty-five percent chardonnay, but this does not mean that Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon selected vins clairs from the same crus for the two vintages! The 2005 Cristal offers up a deep, extremely primary and very promising bouquet of apple, pear, a gorgeously complex base of chalky soil tones, incipient nuttiness, citrus peel, smoke, a touch of lavender and a topnote of peach blossoms. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and absolutely rock solid at the core, with great focus and finesse, very refined mousse, a crisp girdle of acidity and great length and laser-like focus on the poised, primary and utterly refined finish. The 2005 is an utterly brilliant Cristal in the making, but give it time to blossom in the cellar! 2019-2060.

The iconic Roederer Champagne Cristal's latest release brings a perfect balance of richness and age worthiness. It is full of apple flavor and the mousse is very fine and almost imperceptible. As so often with a beautifully blended wine like this a few minutes breathing brings out extra complex flavors. It certainly should age over five years and more.

The 2005 Cristal is another impressive wine in this vertical, but in this case, it is its performance in a very hard year that impresses most. There’s real depth, density and textural resonance here. Apple tart, chamomile, dried flowers, pear and brioche linger. “We had some rot issues, mainly in Pinot Noir, so we focused on Chardonnay.” The Pinot components in Cristal are sourced from vineyards in Aÿ in Marne Valley and then Verzy and Verzenay on the Montagne de Reims, with an unusually high amount of Aÿ Pinot in 2005 as those sites ripened earlier and under more favorable conditions with less rot. Because of that, the 2005 is unusually round and supple in feel. The 2005 also shows a light reductive quality that is not especially typical of Cristal. “Every time the vintage is a bit open in character, we go for reduction, which is achieved by favoring tanks that are more reductive in the blend.” Chef de Caves Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon and his team turned out a brilliant wine in this very challenging harvest. The 2005 is not the finest Cristal, but it is a real charmer. Dosage is 8 grams per liter. Disgorged: 2013. -- Antonio Galloni

Every vintage can't be 2002 or even 2004. Even so this is pretty great an open airy whip-smart delivery of Cristal's spark a wine of formidable delicacy. The undertow is there drawing down a wave of spicy oak notes and heady crème caramel to reveal glints of limestone the bright shimmer of acidity sustained by the cool rootedness in the soil. In 45 words of my notes on this wine there's not a single mention of fruit. Instead they focus on brightness subtlety lusty juiciness balance and mouthwatering complexity.

Vibrant and mouthwatering this offers a range of patisserie pear and apple fruit candied lemon zest pastry dough and marzipan notes set on a finely detailed texture which imparts a great deal of finesse. The lasting finish echoes a smoky mineral note. Drink now through 2025. -A.N.

Like the 2006 this is notably ripe with plenty of yeast, brioche and orchard fruit characters but in this case there is no tropicality. There is fine mid-palate density to the relatively powerful and very rich flavors that possess excellent complexity on the lingering finish that really fans out as it sits in the mouth. Like many 2005s this is not an especially refined vintage for Cristal nor does it possess the effervescent punch it usually does. Those aspects duly noted, this certainly cannot be faulted in terms of richness and complexity and for my taste, this is probably drinking about as well as it’s going to though I underscore that it should drink well for many years to come. now+

The 2005 Cristal is drinking very well, and it stands out as a fine effort in this challenging year for Champagne. Offering up aromas of crisp orchard fruit, nectarine, freshly baked bread and subtle hints of honeycomb, it's medium to full-bodied, elegantly fleshy and incisive, with racy acids and a pearly mousse, concluding with a long, chalky finish. - William Kelley