Champagne Pol Roger was founded in Épernay in 1849 and remains one of the last great houses still owned and run by the founding family.

The house is inseparable from Sir Winston Churchill, who drank it for half a century and whose name was given to the prestige cuvée created in his honour. On his death in 1965, Pol Roger added a black border to its labels for the British market.

Its cellars run some 33 metres below Épernay — among the deepest and coldest in Champagne. The low temperature slows the second fermentation, which is much of why these wines carry so fine and persistent a bead. Riddling is still done by hand.

The Vintage Rosé is made only in declared years. It follows the classic Champagne method for rosé — a base of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from grand and premier cru villages, given colour and flesh by the addition of the house’s own Pinot Noir red wine.

2016 was a hard-won vintage — frost, mildew, then a saving hot summer — and its wines carry a tension that suits rosé particularly well.

Wild strawberry and redcurrant with rose petal and a note of pastry; vinous and precise on the palate, firmly red-fruited, closing dry and chalky. A rosé for the table rather than the terrace.