News

Who knew Boonville, California would be the destination of an enviable and legendary sparkling wine enterprise with a centuries long French connection? Correspondent Molly Blaisdell and her associate Jamie Hilgendorf explore, taste and learn about Mendocino Coast’s legendary sparkling wines at Roederer Estate in Anderson Valley.

According to many producers, 2020 was an exceptional vintage. From Santa Barbara to Anderson Valley, good news is rising from the ashes in areas that avoided smoke damage and in sites where harvests were completed before the blazes. Most of California’s premier growing regions, including Napa Valley, Sonoma, Mendocino County, and the Central Coast, experienced low rainfall in early 2020, setting the regions up for a low-yielding season. Not only did this translate to concentrated, high-quality fruit, but it led many vintners to harvest early, escaping the devastation of the fires.

It is hard to believe that one of the California greats in sparkling wines was founded back in 1982. It was the vision of Jean-Claude Rouzaud, president of Louis Roederer, who saw the cool climate and rolling fog of the Anderson Valley to craft some of the region’s finest sparkling wines. The 580 acre estate produces four sparkling wines: the multi-vintage Roederer Estate Anderson Valley Brut, debuted in 1988, the Brut Rosé and Roederer Estate’s vintage tees de cuvee, L’Ermitage and L’Ermitage Rosé.

With retail prices that range from $14 to $160, domestic sparkling wines offer both quality and value. As for this year’s top sparkling wines, Roederer Estate continues its winning streak. The Mendocino-based winery’s Brut Anderson Valley L’Ermitage 2012 was the No. 5 wine of Wine Spectator’s Top 100 of 2019. This year the Roederer Estate Brut Rosé Anderson Valley L’Ermitage 2012 (95, $75) is effusive with blood orange and lemon peel flavors that show hints of marzipan.

Produced exclusively from estate-grown grapes, and with a healthy dose of reserve wines that have been aged in oak — including a dosage from 2011 that spent five years in barrel— L’Ermitage represents the apex of what Roederer Estate does so well. The blend in the 2013 is 52% Chardonnay and 48% Pinot Noir, and it’s in a remarkable place of its evolution right now, leesy and biscuity on the nose with sweet spice and pistachio aromas anchoring apricot conserve and lemon marmalade. The palate is deep and rich, carrying flavors of marzipan, preserved lemons, apple fritters, Seckel pears, kumquats, a hint of Galia melon, and taut spice and minerality along the spine. It’s layered and maturing brilliantly, and still has another decade and a half of life ahead of it.

Champagne house Louis Roederer established this California outpost in 1982, and its tête de cuvée, L’Ermitage, has impressed since its debut with the 1989 vintage. Succeeding founding winemaker Michel Salgues in 2002, Arnaud Weyrich raises the bar with this bottling, the highest-scoring L’Ermitage to date.

This year I thought it would be fun to examine wines that rarely receive much attention: American sparkling wines made in the Champagne style. Roederer Estate, a branch of the Louis Roederer Champagne house, grows all of its grapes in the Anderson Valley of Mendocino County, and carries that appellation.

Another California sparkling wine estate, Roederer is located in the Anderson Valley. It’s the American winery of Champagne house Roederer. Among the wines…

Roederer Estate in Mendocino’s Anderson Valley, whose winemaker is France-born Arnaud Weyrich, is another house of bubbly that’s known for capturing the essence of Champagne. Roederer Estate Brut Anderson Valley L’Ermitage is among the cadre of consistently outstanding California bubblies, and the 2011 is opulent and lush but elegantly complex, with vivid fresh ginger, cinnamon roll and red berry flavors that unfurl on the long finish.

When you buy a bottle of Champagne, do you buy it because it comes from a certain village? Or do you buy it because you like what the brand offers in terms of the…