Roederer Estate is the California owned property of Champagne Louis Roederer, and produces some very high quality sparkling wines here. I stumbled upon a bottle of L'Ermitage Brut 2000 when nosing about in our local wine store and realized that we really do not see very much vintage dated California sparkling wines and certainly none that are close to a dozen years old. As it happened to be sitting side-by-side with the NV Roederer Champagne (France) and was the same price, I decided that we needed to give it try. And are we ever glad that I did! Now, we just have to see if we can find any more of it.
This cuvee is a great subsititute for more expensive French cuvees, and really for that matter even a lot of vintage and non-vintage champagnes alike. Had we drank this blind, I would never have belived it to be a domestic sparkling wine.
The palate gives up lots of green apple, almonds and light notes of citrus. There is ample acidity which balances out the fruit nicely. Even at nearly 12 years old, the bubbles were tight and plentiful, with no perceivable loss of effervescence. The wine finishes with good yeasty notes that lasted for a long time.
When we think of opening a sparkling wine in the future, it will very likely be that we are looking for this one again. At $33.99 it is a great deal for a solid sparkling wine.
Cheers!
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