Winemaker Notes
15% Cabernet Sauvignon; 45% Cab Franc; 40% Merlot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A completely different blend from the winery's 2006 Ciel, this reflects Chris Camarda's growing enchantment with Cabernet Franc, which is now 45% of the blend. Most of the rest is Merlot—a Right Bank style. The concept works. It captures the sleek minerality of the site, and puts the fruit into tight, laser-like focus. The wine seems almost crystalline—sharp-edged and reflective, with penetrating angles and offset flavors.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Ciel du Cheval is a blend of 45% Cabernet Franc, 40% Merlot, and 15 % Cabernet Sauvignon aged in 40% new French oak for 20 months. Medium purple in color, it offers up an enticing nose of pain grille, pencil lead, herbs, olives, violets, cassis, and black currant. Ripe, smooth-textured, and mouth-filling, it has enough structure to evolve for several years. This lengthy effort will offer prime drinking from 2013 to 2027.
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Wine & Spirits
Dark and youthful, this blends cabernet franc and merlot with a small portion of cabernet sauvignon. It leads with savory tar and mocha scents that meld with plump blue fruit. The flavors seem fat and rich at first, but the tannins supporting all that weight are so precise and tightly wound it's clear the wine is a long way from peak expression. Wait a year, then check it out with a hanger steak.
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Wine Spectator
A bit rough around the edges, but not enough to detract from the gorgeous, focused blackberry, currant, green olive and dusky spice flavors that course through the focused finish. Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Best from 2012 through 2017
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
As the first recognized wine-growing region in the Pacific Northwest, Yakima Valley is centrally located within Washington’s vast Columbia Valley. The region also includes Washington’s oldest Cabernet Sauvignon vines, Otis Vineyard, planted in 1957, and Harrison Hill Vineyard, planted in 1963. Yakima Valley contains three smaller sub-regions: Rattlesnake Hills, Red Mountain, and Snipes Mountain and is ideal for both red and white wine production. In fact, Yakima Valley is Washington’s most diverse region, boasting more than 40 different grape varieties over about one hundred miles.
The cooler parts of the valley are home to almost half of the Chardonnay and Riesling produced in the state! Both are made in a wide range of styles depending on the conditions of the vineyard site.
But its warmer locations yield a large proportion of Washington’s best Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. The finest Yakima Valley reds are jam-packed full of red cherry, currant, raspberry or blackberry fruit, as well as cocoa, herb, spice and savory notes, and exhibit a supple texture, great body, focus and length.