Ruinart's R de Ruinart is a champagne born of two regions, the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Blancs. It sits firmly in the Chardonnay tradition, the grape that defines the House.
This is a cuvée that speaks in white fruits and yellow fruits, carried on into floral notes. Its mineral tension (a bright freshness with no heaviness) makes for a wine that is balanced, fresh and crisp.
It's a bottle you can pour at aperitif time, with cheese gougères perhaps, and then bring back to the table alongside pan-seared scallops.
The Terroir
R de Ruinart is a blend of:
- 45% Pinot Noir
- 40% Chardonnay
- 15% Meunier
The grapes come from 40 to 50 different crus (a cru being a single village in the vineyard classification) and are drawn from the terroirs of the Côte des Blancs and the Montagne de Reims, where Ruinart tends its vines.
This mosaic of origins is the strength of the blend: each cru brings the imprint of its own soil and aspect, and together they make a more complete wine than any one of them could alone. The two great zones complement each other in the glass.
On this terroir, Pinot Noir gives the wine structure and depth, Chardonnay finesse and freshness, and Meunier roundness and fruit.
Winemaking
Caroline Fiot, Ruinart's chef de cave, chose to vinify this cuvée in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks: the carefully managed temperature preserves a clean, pure fruit character during alcoholic fermentation. Malolactic fermentation (the second transformation, which softens the wine's natural acidity) was allowed to run to completion: it rounds out the acidity and adds silkiness.
The blend includes 20 to 30% reserve wines, drawn from harvests of different years, which add depth to the whole.
The 7 g/L dosage, in the Brut category, is a classic dosage: it adds a touch of roundness and balances the wine's freshness.
A non-vintage cuvée
R de Ruinart is not the product of a single year: it is a non-vintage cuvée, assembled from several harvests. Every summer brings its own differences: a hot year gives riper grapes, a cool one gives more tightly wound wines. Blending allows those variations to be evened out.
To do this, the House draws on its reserve wines (wines from previous harvests, set aside to be blended later). They bring depth and consistency, and make it possible to find the Ruinart house style from one bottle to the next, whatever the weather of the year. You know exactly what you're opening, today or a year from now.
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