The latest vintage of Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill is more approachable than in previous years, says Simon Field MW. But it remains a powerful, mature, and food-friendly wine of the kind its namesake would have enjoyed.
Churchill’s taste for Pol Roger can be traced back to an invoice from his wine merchant, Randolph Payne & Sons, dated 1908, when he purchased a case of the 1895 vintage. His affection assumed a more corporeal if Platonic dimension after lunching with Odette de Pol Roger, a society beauty, at the British Embassy in Paris to celebrate the liberation of Paris in 1945. Also present were General de Gaulle, Anthony Eden, and naturally enough, the British ambassador, who was so struck by the camaraderie evidenced that he promptly inscribed mention of said wine in his diary. Thereafter, Pol Champagne for elevenses, an ongoing (to this day) friendship between the two houses, and a canon of oft-repeated Champagne-related bons mots from the great man. It has been calculated, by whom I know not, that Churchill consumed the equivalent of 42,000 bottles of Pol Roger in his lifetime. Not bad going. He would probably have availed himself of the imperial pint format, ideal before luncheon, but only if one’s guests were abstaining.
Anyway, somewhat late in the day—or after a respectable gap, depending on one’s point of view—the celebratory Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill was launched, the celebration initially restrained by a mourning black band on the bottle. This was formalized 19 years after
This Article was originally published on World of Fine Wine
