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First taste: Champagne Pol Roger, Sir Winston Churchill 2012

Simon Field MW reviews the new release of Pol Roger's prestige cuvée – Sir Winston Churchill 2012 - a Champagne with very British associations.

Winston Churchill was already in his thirties when, in 1908, he placed his first formal order for Pol Roger; the merchant in question was Randolph Payne & Sons, the order for ‘1 dozen bottles of Pol Roger 1895’.

He certainly made up for this slow start, thereafter consuming somewhere in the region of 240,000 bottles, albeit in the more modestly sized Imperial Pint format. 


Scroll down for Simon Field MW’s Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill 2012 tasting note and score


A luncheon in Great Britain’s Paris Embassy with Odette de Pol Roger added a Platonic twist of romance to the infatuation, its vinous legacy, now in in its 19th edition, celebrated by the Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill, always one of the most prestigious of the prestige cuvées.

When he was not enjoying the best of Pol Roger vintages (1928, 1935, 1945 and 1947 were the star performers of the time), Churchill applied himself to the task of saving the country from the Nazis and earning the undying affection of the nation.

The relationship between the families, built on mutual respect rather than commercial ties, continues as each new release is ‘approved’ by Churchill’s descendants, Randolph Churchill and Nicholas Soames.


See Simon Field MW’s Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill 2012 tasting note and score


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