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PREMIUM

Vintage rosé Champagne: panel tasting results

Our judges relished the time to focus in on this selection of rosé styles, awarding consistent scores and praising the freshness and vitality on show.

Peter Liem, Alan Bednarski and Claire Thevenot MS tasted 28 wines, with 3 Outstanding and 20 Highly recommended.


Vintage rosé Champagne panel tasting scores

28 wines tasted

Exceptional 0

Outstanding 3

Highly recommended 20

Recommended 5

Commended 0

Fair 0

Poor 0

Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their current-release, single-vintage rosé Champagnes, allowing for any style from zéro dosage through brut to demi-sec


Rosé Champagne is a difficult category to generalise about, and vintage rosé perhaps even more so. Most in this tasting were of excellent quality, showing that there are multiple ways to achieve success. One conspicuous element was a relatively restrained dosage, even for those wines not labelled as extra brut or non-dosé.


Scroll down to see tasting notes and scores from the vintage rosé Champagne panel tasting


Historically there has been a tendency to dose rosés slightly higher than their blanc counterparts, often due to an archaic stereotype about rosé being sweeter to suit the female palate – but some winemakers also believe that the tannins of red wine need more sugar to balance.


Vintage rosé Champagne panel tasting scores


The judges

Peter Liem is an awarded wine writer and author specialising in Champagne. Resident in Epernay, he publishes his website champagneguide.net and co-hosts the annual La Fête du Champagne event in the US. His book Champagne was published in 2017 (Mitchell Beazley).

Alan Bednarski is a sommelier, wine consultant and a DWWA judge. He is co-owner of a new ‘comfort European food’ restaurant due to open in Katowice, Poland in spring 2023, and is soon to launch his Cool Climate Wine Guide initially online.

Claire Thevenot MS is owner of UK-based importer Vins-Clairs. She moved from eastern France in 2002, rising to be head sommelier at Hotel du Vin in Winchester, then in 2006 she became the first French female Master Sommelier, winning the UK Sommelier of the Year competition in the same year.


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