“This is the fifth release of L’Ermitage Rosé since its introduction with the 1999 vintage, and the cool 2011 season earned the wine’s third 95-point score. Arnaud Weyrich selects the fruit for this top cuvée from Roederer’s 580-acre vineyard, planted and farmed for sparkling wine. What sets L’Ermitage apart is the purity of its fruit, completely present and yet delicate, a ghosting of raspberry and currant flavor. Weyrich brings out that fruit essence and achieves the color of the wine by blending in a small portion of still wine from Pinot Noir, taking those grapes through an extended cold soak, then finishing their fermentation off the skins to capture the fruit rather than the tannins. Seven years on the lees has taken that fruit in a savory direction, a gentle evocation of the forest mists of Anderson Valley with an undertow of ethereal raspberry flavor.”