The 2016 Champagne Vintage Brut is the new release and is composed of 70% Pinot Noir from Verzy and the rest Chardonnay from Chouilly. A slightly richer golden straw hue, it has a floral bouquet on the nose and is a very pretty vintage of this wine aromatically. It’s sappy with lemon confit and is salty throughout the palate, revealing the weight of the Pinot Noir but retaining wonderful freshness. This lovely wine is going to take some time to open aromatically, but it’s going to be worth the wait. Drink it over the coming 15 years. It’s a going to be a stunning wine for pairings. 7 gram per liter dosage in this wine and in the collection.

A bright yellow reflective color, the 2017 Champagne Blanc De Blancs is aromatic and pretty on the nose although just a little shy at this stage, offering notes of lemon meringue and hazelnut. The wine has a Burgundian texture and breadth to it, with a highly refined feel of elegance, a supple, rounded mouthfeel, a fluffy mousse, and a long finish. It has a hint of warmth, but it’s very well-managed and balanced. It’s pure all the way through, with a persistent chalky, underlying mineral texture.

The 2014 Champagne Cristal Rosé is much more open and generous, with brothy and briny elements like an ocean breeze. Coming from two plots of Chardonnay and two plots of Pinot Noir, it has a very natural and ripe, floral perfume of peach and peony. On the palate, there’s an energy and electricity to this wine that could be called the golden point of high-toned energy. With wonderful persistence and a delicate spice as well as notes of peachy fruit, oyster shell, and brine, it’s long on the finish and refined throughout. There’s a light spice to the mousse that accents things well and a cologne of more woodsy spice that draws inward. The finish has a bit of mouthwatering tension and coiled energy that’s going to take time to unfurl, so hold this another few years and drink it over the following 30.

The 2016 Champagne Cristal is transparent and complex, with lovely aromas of fresh flowers. Medium-bodied and chiseled, with great texture, well-defined saltiness, and delicate notes of shortbread, it’s a shimmering and electric wine with fantastic detail. It has a concentrated, chalky profile and is flush with crushed stones. It will demand some patience, but this is a fantastic wine in this vintage for Cristal. Bravo.

When a house from the prestigious region of Champagne takes interest in making wine in the U.S., it's a big deal. When the Roederer family arrived in California they headed north of the famed Napa and Sonoma to the cooler climate of Anderson Valley in Mendocino County. L’ Ermitage is a special cuvée, made only in exceptional years. The wine has a river-rock minerality on the nose, with hints of sliced pear and vanilla bean. The palate is liquid gold with notes of roasted pear and cream and an elegant mouthfeel.