Roederer Estate — Attraction in Ukiah

Roederer Estate is one of the three major sparkling wine producers (Scharffenberger and Domaine Anderson being the others) in the Anderson Valley that are owned by the champagne house, Maison Louis Roederer, the producer of Cristal among other things. In my opinion, they produce the best wines of the three, so we stopped by at 11 AM without a reservation for a mid-week tasting. We were the only ones for the hour or so that we were there. The tasting room is currently being renovated, so we sat outside on the patio that overlooked the vineyards. They offered two tastings:

Classic Flight for $25 Brut MV Brut MV from a magnum Brut Rosé MV 2020 Clark Road Single Vineyard Extra Dry

L’Ermitage Flight for $45 Brut MV Brut Rosé from a magnum 2017 L’Ermitage Brut 2006 L’Ermitage Brut Late Disgorged 2015 L’Ermitage Brut Rosé

They requested that everyone in the party drink the same flight, so we went with the L’Ermitage Flight. It was more expensive, but it was worth it just to try the three wonderful L’Ermitage wines. To be fair, older vintage champagnes (2006) might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it was fascinating to taste the effect of aging - think caramel and brioche notes as opposed to fresh fruits. It was getting close to lunch, so we also ordered the eggs mimosa and the lavender honey and goat cheese crostini. Both were delicious and paired very well with the wines.

Afterwards, you have the opportunity to not only buy a wide range of library wines from the Roederer Estate, but also from Maison Louis Roederer including several older vintages of Cristal at pretty reasonable prices. We opted to go with the 2006 L’Ermitage LD Brut ($120) and the 2003 L’Ermitage Brut Rosé ($140) because I doubt that we will come across these wines anywhere else.

If you enjoy sparkling wines, this might be an excellent stop as you make your way through the Anderson Valley. It will probably be even better when the new tasting room opens too.

One last recommendation - go to the bathroom. Really. In order to get to the bathroom, you get to see the wine storage area, the fermentation barrels/tanks, etc. Pretty...

We are longtime members of Roederer’s club and have attended events and been to the winery many times in spite of the distance from our home. We love their champagnes and have introduced them to many friends. We have always had wonderful experiences with the staff.

Today we received six magnums that we had no idea were coming. I called the winery to tell them that we had received an order in error and was informed that they had changed the club in March, and we hadn’t responded to either of two emails so had received the default wines. It would be highly unusual for me to miss something like these emails. I searched my emails, which I don’t delete, and not only do I not have the two the gentleman referenced, but I have no email from Roederer since early March, including any emails regarding this shipment. His response was “i’m sure if you look hard enough you will find it.” But I did not receive these emails and still am not receiving emails from Roederer, even in my spam folder. He told me I could ship the wines back myself or bring them to the winery.

This is the first review I’ve ever written, and though I love the wines and the place, this gentleman made me feel like I was so rattle-brained that I couldn’t keep my emails straight and it was my mistake. As a longtime customer, I had to speak out about this poor interaction.

POSTSCRIPT: after my husband called back, Roederer came up with a solution for us, and the gentleman I talked with sent a nice email with...

My husband and I joined Roederer a few years ago because we wanted to leave local bubbles for our Air BnB guests. When we joined we were told by our server that we could arrange to have our guests do a free tasting using our membership. We did this a couple of times and it was so nice to be able to offer it. This past week, two of our guests went to the winery. I tried to call and speak to winery staff beforehand, but got no answer. Our guests were told that they would have to pay for their tasting because Roederer does not allow AirBnB guests to use someone else's membership. This came as a surprise to me, since this is something that we've done in the past. I called the tasting room and spoke to one of the servers, who was very polite and said that I would have to speak to the manager. When I spoke to the manager he acted as though I was crazy to think our guests could do a free tasting, despite me telling him that this is something we've done before. I understand that this is policy, however, the manager was brisk (to put it nicely) and acted as though I was wasting his time. Given that he works in the hospitality industry I expected kinder service. Even just an, "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding," but no. No kind words. Perhaps we are not wealthy enough to matter to Roederer management. That is certainly how they...