Ruinart's R de Ruinart is a champagne drawn from the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Blancs, two of Champagne's most emblematic regions, brought together in a single wine.
This is a cuvée built around white fruit, citrus and a touch of white blossom, in a fresh, crisp style. Chardonnay, the golden thread running through the Ruinart style, drives that freshness. The texture is round and well balanced.
It is a bottle you can open with canapés, on gougères made with Comté for instance, and then bring back to the table alongside a sole meunière. In Magnum, it will pour around a dozen flutes.
Le Terroir
R de Ruinart is a blend of:
- 45% Pinot Noir
- 40% Chardonnay
- 15% Meunier
The grapes come from the Montagne de Reims and the Côte des Blancs, where Ruinart draws on 40 to 50 crus (a cru being a winegrowing village and all of its vineyards).
Each cru has its own character. Bringing together so many gives the cellar master an exceptionally broad palette with which to compose a balanced wine, one in which no single plot dominates.
From this terroir, Pinot Noir brings structure and vinosity to the wine, Chardonnay finesse and freshness, and Meunier roundness and fruitiness.
La vinification
Caroline Fiot, cellar master at Maison Ruinart, has chosen to vinify R de Ruinart entirely in stainless steel tanks, with no time in oak at all. The wine therefore picks up no woody notes, and the fruit stays firmly in the foreground. The tanks are temperature-controlled, meaning the temperature of fermentation is carefully managed, which preserves a clean, vivid fruitiness.
The wine goes through full malolactic fermentation (a second transformation that converts the wine's sharp acidity into a softer one). This rounds off the acidity and lends a velvety quality to the whole cuvée. The dosage, set at 7 g/L, places this wine in the Brut category. That small touch of sugar adds roundness and balances the freshness without masking the fruit.
Une cuvée non millésimée
The weather changes from one year to the next in Champagne, and every harvest has its own temperament. So that R de Ruinart keeps the same style from bottle to bottle, and from magnum to magnum, the House does not rely on a single vintage.
To the wines of the year, it adds 20 to 30% reserve wines (wines from previous harvests, set aside for blending). Drawn from different years, they complement the current harvest and smooth out its climatic variations, whether the year was sunnier and more generous or cooler.
That way, you find the House signature each time you buy: this is the whole point of blending several years rather than letting a single one dictate the taste.
What customers liked most