Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill 2015

Pol Roger will not tell you what is in this bottle. The exact blend of Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill is a family secret, kept on purpose, and the house says only that Pinot Noir predominates, with Chardonnay supplying the finesse. Anyone quoting you precise percentages is guessing. What they do confirm: every grape comes from Grand Cru vineyards already under vine in Churchill's lifetime.

This is only the 21st vintage of the cuvée ever made. It is bottled in years the house rates and always released later than their other vintage wines, because Churchill liked his Champagne with some age on it. The 2015 harvest began on 29 August after a dry summer. Vinification is painstaking: two settlings, a cool ferment below 18°C with every village and variety kept apart, then full malolactic. Second fermentation happens 33 metres under Épernay, in cellars cold and damp enough that the bottles are still riddled by hand. Disgorged September 2022 at 7 g/l. 12.5%.

Mid gold, very fine bead. Pepper and spice first, then black fruit with real density behind it, dried fruit and hazelnut, a lick of something tropical. The palate is broad and mouth-filling: candied fruit, brioche pastry, cocoa. Smoky weight is beginning to show, held up by a long, rich acidity. At £203.99 the honest answer on timing is that it drinks generously now but is nowhere near finished. Pol Roger say twenty more years. On this evidence that is not bravado.

How to Serve

10–12°C, warmer than you would pour most Champagne. A proper white-wine glass. Give it half an hour to open. Treat it like a white Burgundy with bubbles.

Where to Drink It

Wiltons on Jermyn Street, which is more or less the wine's natural habitat. Boisdale, for the obvious Churchillian reasons. Dukes Bar in St James's, for a glass rather than a bottle.

Food Pairings

Turbot on the bone with beurre blanc. It has enough weight and enough acid to sit beside butter without being flattened, and that fine bead scrubs the fat clean between mouthfuls. Roast grouse if you would rather lean into the smoke.