Roederer Estate L'Ermitage Brut Anderson Valley 2019
This tête de cuvée from one of the champions of California’s bubbly has a true Champagne pedigree that might fool your very discerning palate!

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Why We Love It...
Roederer Estate was founded in 1982 by Champagne Louis Roederer as a kind of “Champagne West” destination, in Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley. The estate tries to be as faithful to the traditions of the original Champagne house as it can be, even though it is squarely in the heart of one of California’s most revered wine regions. It certainly has its own identity while also retaining its mother ties to Champagne Louis Roederer.
Jean-Claude Rouzaud is the former president of Champagne Louis Roederer and understood that great wine is made in the vineyard. He sought after distinctive California terroir to establish an American outpost of the famed Champagne house around the same time that many other French sparkling houses started to make some serious California investments. Frederic Rouzaud, Jean-Claude’s son, now helms the estate, which launched its first vintage in 1988, six years after the winery was founded and estate vines planted. The estate stays so true to its French roots that they even recruited a French winemaker, Arnaud Weyrich, to craft the wines. Arnaud was intimately familiar with Roederer as he started at the winery as an intern in the early ‘90s, did a stint in Champagne at Louis Roederer, and then made his way back to Roederer Estate, where he’s now in charge of all winemaking.
The Rouzaud family chose the distinctive terroir of Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley for their location, where the climate felt similar to Champagne – foggy and wet, and with Anderson Valley’s coastal locale, it was cool climate too. All of these factors played a part in the near-immediate success of Roederer Estate.
L’Ermitage is Roederer Estate’s prestige cuvee, only made in exceptional vintage years. Following suit, the cuvee is made in the traditional method, with secondary fermentation in the bottle, and sometimes uses oak-aged reserve wines in its blend. We consider it the West Coast version of Cristal – consistently one of the top examples of Cali-bubbles at any price. In this powerful and fleshy 2019, Roederer Estate decided to switch things up a bit and allowed this to be the first vintage of L’Ermitage to undergo malolactic conversion. Add on the low pH of the wine and you are blessed with a tremendously smooth expression that doesn’t need a large dosage. For this prestige cuvee, the dosage is remarkably low at only 6 grams per liter.
The cepage is 52% chardonnay and 48% pinot noir, with almost 4% chardonnay from the 2016 vintage. There’s a pome fruit skin characteristic that’s quite lovely and adds dimension to the wine, along with quince paste, buttered toast, and sea spray aromas. On the palate, green apples, meyer lemon, nectarine, and golden plums abound, with whispers of honeysuckle and orange blossom. It’s a remarkably balanced wine, and every now and then, just slightly, I feel like I’m drinking Champagne. Yes, it could possibly fool even the most ardent Champagne die-hards like you bubble monsters! Don’t believe me? I dare you to buy a bottle or three and tell me differently…I’m waiting…
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