1995 Leclerc Briant 'Rubis' Vintage Rosé Champagne

One bottle available. From the family era, before everything changed.

Rubis is Leclerc Briant's rosé: 100% Pinot Noir from old-vine parcels in the warmer pockets of Cumières, made with real skin contact rather than a token blush. It comes out darker than almost anything else in Champagne, dark enough that it has always sat awkwardly against rules that have restricted red Champagne since the 1950s.

Why the year on the label matters

Leclerc Briant today is a celebrated biodynamic house owned by Mark Nunnelly and Denise Dupré, with Hervé Jestin making the wine. None of that is this bottle.

In 1995 the house belonged to the family, run by Pascal Leclerc-Briant, the fifth generation. Pascal is one of the two people usually credited with bringing biodynamics to Champagne; he began experimenting in 1970, at a time when almost nobody in the region was listening, and his father Bertrand had already dropped chemical fertilisers in the early 1960s. The estate converted progressively from 1989 and did not finish until after the 2000 harvest, so a 1995 was made roughly midway through that transition, not from a fully biodynamic estate. We mention it because a lot of copy about this house blurs the dates.

Pascal died in 2010 at sixty. Vineyards were sold off in 2011, the house changed hands, and the modern chapter began. This bottle predates all of it.

The details

• Producer: Leclerc Briant, Épernay, founded 1872 in Cumières
• Cuvée: Rubis, vintage rosé
• Vintage: 1995
• Grape: 100% Pinot Noir, old vines in Cumières
• Method: deep colour from maceration on the skins
• Format: 750ml
• Drinking window: now. Fully mature.

No disgorgement date is published for this bottle and there is no critic score for the 1995 Rubis that we could verify. On a thirty-one-year-old Champagne, condition and storage matter more than either.

Where this bottle came from

We know the person who owned this before us. At this age that is not a small thing, and it is the reason we were willing to buy it at all. Checked by hand, then straight into temperature-controlled storage.

What to expect, and how to serve it

Mature Champagne at this age is a different drink from young Champagne. Expect the mousse to have softened to a fine thread rather than a rush of bubbles, and the fruit to have turned toward dried strawberry, blood orange, walnut and pastry. Serve at 50 to 54°F in a white wine glass, not a flute, and not straight from a cold fridge. Drink it with food: roast poultry, salmon, or a plate of charcuterie.

One bottle left, shipped from Florida in protective packaging. Browse more Champagne and sparkling.