Tenet wines is a collaboration between the Washington-based power-player Château Ste-Michelle and Rhône winemaker Michel Gassier. It’s a very expressive wine that shows bittersweet chocolate, toast, black tea, blueberry jam, and black cherry aromas. It’s fruit-driven, undeniably ripe but with very little spices. The palate is silky, smooth, and restrained, with a lot of charm.
A ripe and sophisticated blend of 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc and 3% Malbec. It shows layered aromas of tart red berries, ripe blackberries, aromatic herbs, espresso, and almonds. Very expressive and tense, the tannins are compact and drying, with underlying fruit freshness and power.
The profile of this wine is oak-forward and very extracted. Aromas include plum, blackberry, spice, and leather. It’s a solid wine, with fore-front tannins but still approachable and generous.
Feather is Randy Dunn’s only wine made outside of California. It’s very dark, crimson-colored, with an overripe, concentrated black-fruit character as well as charcoal, oak, and dark chocolate notes. The palate is full-bodied, powerful, still showing intense concentration, intensity, and tight-textured tannins.
Profound wine showing blackberries, coffee, chocolate, oak, vanilla, licorice, spices, tobacco, light herbs, and peppercorn. Full-bodied with rounded tannins, the palate feels light and harmonious.
Dark-colored and rich, this wine is very savory, with notes of smoked bacon, mushrooms, freshly crushed black pepper, forest floor, cocoa, gravels. It has a powerful palate with strong, grippy tannins, and a mineral-driven finale.
Crafted from different varietals ( Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Mourvèdre), different vintages (2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018), and different appellations (Horse Heaven Hills, Columbia Valley, Red Mountain) this wine is compelling and intriguing. While ripe and mature, it still shows accessible fruit flavors and a very supple palate. It’s youthful in style but…
Aged 20 months in 75% new French puncheons, 25% used French barrels, this is a classic expression of Columbia Valley’s Cabernet Sauvignon. Bold and ripe with rich flavors of cassis, plum, eucalyptus, and graphite. It’s full-bodied, the tannins are soft with crisp acidity and the concentration offers a good length.
Filled with bold fruitiness, red cherry, brambleberry, raspberry, blackberry, this dark-colored wine also has a lot of oak presence and hints of cajun. Overall, this is a powerful, but balanced wine, with an overall low acidity that is calibrated with the crispness of the fruit character. The palate is smooth but quite concentrated.
2015 was the first time Quilceda used grapes from their Lake Wallula Vineyard in Horse Heaven Hills in addition to their Champoux and Palengat vineyards. With 2015 being a notoriously warm vintage in Washington, it shows in the heavy ripeness of this wine. It’s a full-bodied wine with complex, intricate, layered aromas of currant, graphite,…