Maison Régnard’s 2022 Chablis “Montmains” is crafted entirely from hand-harvested parcels of vines, with ninety percent of the cuvée raised in stainless steel tanks and ten percent in older oak casks. The wine’s aromatic constellation is bright and complex, delivering scents of apple, pear, a complex base of chalky soil tones, just a touch of paraffin, white flowers and just a whisper of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is crisp, full-bodied and still fairly youthful in personality, with good depth of fruit at the core, fine soil signature, a good girdle of acidity and a long, well balanced and still quite primary finish. This is of course already quite approachable, but in reality it is still a young wine and more precision and complexity will certainly develop if the wine is given just another year or two in the cellar to blossom. It is a very good bottle of Montmains in the making, but its best drinking days are still a couple of years down the road. 2025-2050.

All of the grapes used for the Chablis “Saint Pierre” bottling from Maison Régnard are hand harvested, which is a fairly rare occurrence for villages level bottlings in this region, where many examples are still made from machine-harvested grapes. The wine is fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks and the 2023 version comes in at a svelte 12.5 percent octane in this vintage. The wine’s bouquet is lovely, wafting from the glass in a mix of lemon, pear, chalky soil tones, a touch of beeswax, a nice touch of Chablisienne straw tones and a topnote of citrus blossoms. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied and youthfully complex, with a lovely core of fruit, good soil undertow and grip, lovely balance and a long, poised and focused finish. This is a very good example of Chablis AC. 2025-2040+.

The 2017 Roederer Estate “l’Ermitage” Brut Millésime is crafted this year from a cépages of fifty-two percent chardonnay, forty-six percent pinot noir and two percent pinot meunier. It was finished this year with a dosage of 7.5 grams per liter and offers up a beautifully refined and complex nose of apple, bread fruit, bread dough, a lovely base of white soil tones, gentle smokiness and a topnote of dried flowers. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied, focused and still youthfully brisk, with a fine core of fruit, excellent soil inflection, elegant mousse and a long, complex and impeccably balanced finish. This is already tasty, but like all of the past releases of l'Ermitage from Roederer Estate, this wine is built for cellaring and it will be an even finer drink five to ten years down the road! 2025-2055+.

The 2020 Clark Road Vineyard bottling is the second new single site cuvée from Roederer Estate. It is effectively the mirror image of the Apple Alley bottling, as the cépages here is pinot noir dominant, with seventy-seven percent of this varietal augmented by twenty-three percent chardonnay in this vintage. The wine includes ten percent vins clairs that were barrel-fermented. The wine was disgorged in February of 2024 and finished with a dosage of five grams per liter. The wine’s aromatic constellation is refined and complex, wafting from the glass in a mix of apple, tart white peach, pâtissière, a fine base of soil, incipient smokiness and a nice touch of white flowers in the upper register. On the palate the wine is bright, young and full-bodied, with a fine core of fruit, excellent mineral undertow and grip, elegant mousse and a long, complex and very well balanced finish. This is excellent wine in the making, but give it a bit of cellaring to allow its secondary layers of complexity to emerge. 2027-2050+.

The 2020 vintage marks the very first time Roederer Estate has ventured into producing single vineyard bottlings from its vineyard holdings in Anderson Valley. The Apple Alley Vineyard takes its name from it having been a former apple orchard, as Roederer Estate chose to keep all of the apple trees that line flank the road into the vineyard. The wine is crafted from a cépages of seventy-four percent chardonnay and twenty-six percent pinot noir, with eight percent of the vins clairs having been barrel-fermented. The wine was disgorged in February of 2024 and finished with a dosage of six grams per liter. The wine delivers a refined bouquet of apple, quince, a lovely base of soil tones, bread dough and a topnote of dried flowers. On the palate the wine is crisp, focused and full-bodied, with a lovely core of fruit, excellent soil signature, frothy mousse, a firm spine of acidity and a very long, complex and impeccably balanced finish. To my palate this is still a young wine and truly deserves at least a few years in the cellar to properly blossom. It is an important new wine from Roederer Estate and certainly looks likely to soon be one of the benchmark sparkling wines produced in the US! 2027-2050+.