Provenance

Private Client

Critics Ratings

1982:
'Lovely truffley fully developed nose. Tightly wound and very intriguing. Rich underneath. Very flattering and gorgeous. Finishes a little skinnier. Lots of mushrooms on the palate. Long. Quite rich really Very much a wine rather than a champagne, with some real weight. Very fine and neat and dense. Perhaps slightly less concentrated than the 1990 and 1996.' - Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com, 19/20 (Aug 2007)

'Power, intensity and phenolics are the signatures of the 1982 Cristal. One of my personal favorites, the 1982 is bright, tense and vibrant to the core. I very much like the sense of energy here. The aromatics could be a touch more precise in this bottle, but the trademark 1982 structure is very much on display. The 1982 remains one of my all-time favorite Cristals.' - Antonio Galloni, Vinous, 96/100 (Oct 2014)

'A simply delicious Champagne with lots of flavor and charm. It's very clean; crisp and full-bodied with toasty, yeasty, figgy aromas and a delicate creamy texture that shows off the spicy, tart cherry and gingery flavors.' - Wine Spectator, 92/100 (1987)

1983:
'The 1983 Cristal is fabulous. Rich, ample and generous, the 1983 is incredibly inviting, with tons of class and personality. A wine of real volume and textural breadth, the 1983 has enough pedigree to drink well for many years. None of the elements stand out in the 1983, the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts. "Nineteen eighty-three is a different animal from some of the other wines of the decade," Lécaillon explains. "It was a heavy crop, with a lot of fruit. There was so much wine in the cellar that the team could not get to everything in a timely fashion, and so there were some lots that started to oxidize a bit, and that, naturally, made the wine bigger." In tasting, though, there are no off aromas or mushroomy flavors that suggest the wine is fading. If anything, the 1983 is spectacularly beautiful right now, even in the presence of other wines from more highly reputed vintages.' - Antonio Galloni, Vinous, 96/100 (Mar 2018)