This is a powerful and dense sparkling wine that is first and foremost a classic-quality wine. And then you think about the bubbles. Full-bodied with lots of brioche, pie crust and bread dough. Great finish. Five years on the lees. 52% chardonnay and 48% pinot noir. Drink now.James Suckling | 97 JSThis grand, special-occasion wine is wonderfully complex and layered, but also powerful in the way its toasted walnut, Bosc pear and fresh bread flavors start out strong in the aroma and keep pumping on the palate and through a lingering finish. Nice and dry, tangy but mouthfilling, it’s a sophisticated indulgence. Best now to 2028.Wine Enthusiast | 96 WE(Roederer Estate “l’Ermitage” Brut Vintage (Anderson Valley)) The 2015 vintage of l’Ermitage has continued to open up nicely over the course of the last eight months since I last had the pleasure to drink the wine. It is certainly going to be one of the more powerful and long-lived vintages of this flagship bottling, but it is already quite open and enjoyable to drink in its relative youth. As is customary, the wine’s cépages is slightly tilted to chardonnay, with the blend being fifty-two percent chardonnay and forty-eight percent pinot noir. It was finished with a dosage of eight grams per liter in this vintage. The wine remains youthfully complex on the nose, offering up scents of apple, pear, a lovely base of soil tones, gentle smokiness, warm bread and a bit of incipient nuttiness just starting to show in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, crisp and soil-driven, with a superb core, elegant mousse, excellent focus and grip and a long, complex and utterly refined finish. Fine, fine juice in the making. (Drink between 2022-2070)John Gilman | 94 JG
