Winemaker Notes
#17 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2024
This wine has been on fire and 2021 is a stunning vintage - a classic Walla Walla Cabernet Sauvignon with a small percentage of Merlot, Petit Verdot and Malbec blended in to add complexity and delicate aromatics. The fruit comes from four world class vineyards - two of Bledsoe's more youthful estate vineyards (Bob Healy and Flying B) beautifully complemented by fruit from the historic blocks of Seven Hills and Pepper Bridge Vineyards. Perfectly ripe plums, blackberry, and memories of walking through a native sagebrush field in Walla Walla on a warm fall day. Rich and concentrated from the warmth of the vintage, the wine has fine grained tannin that builds and evolves, red fruit, subtle hints of graphite and charcoal from great French oak and Italian concrete.
Blend: 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 9% Petit Verdot, 7% Malbec
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Broad-shouldered in style but rich and detailed, with blackberry and currant flavors accented by black olive, stony mineral and licorice notes that gather tension toward firm tannins. Needs time. Best from 2025 through 2033.
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Decanter
A savoury and fresh Cabernet Sauvignon from Walla Walla's Bledsoe Family Winery. Aromas of roasted hatch peppers and wild desert scrub are followed by red currant, pomegranate and whispers of gravelly minerals. The palate offers a tart red berry that becomes cocoa powder-covered black cherries. Hints of blood orange, sage, and crushed stone mineral notes finish the wine. Grippy tannins provide a structure with ample acidity that can allow this wine to lay down for several years.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon checks in as 75% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest nearly equal parts Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Malbec that spent 22 months mostly in French and neutral oak. It has ripe red and black plum, tobacco, loamy earth, and spicy oak notes in a medium to full-bodied, ripe, nicely balanced style.
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Vinous
The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon is a total pleasure on the nose, mixing blackberries, lavender pastille and crushed chalk with hints of graphite and sweet pipe tobacco. Mineral tones and violet inner florals ride atop a silken textural wave, all propelled by zesty acidity. The 2021 tapers off with a tinge of sour citrus and echoes of licorice, leaving a spicy tension and gentle tannins on the finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a rich yet elegant Cabernet Sauvignon that delivers optimal pleasure the minute it is opened. You are greeted by ripe black cherry aromas that are encircled by notes of black coffee, leather and sandalwood. This is a medium-bodied wine with velvety tannins that delivers lengthy blackberry pie and anise flavors.
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James Suckling
Generous array of berry fruit with notes of mulberries, blueberries, currants and shiso leaves. It’s juicy and pure with a medium body, fresh acidity and silky, fruit-driven layers.
A noble variety bestowed with both power and concentration, Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys success all over the globe, its best examples showing potential to age beautifully for decades. Cabernet Sauvignon flourishes in Bordeaux's Medoc where it is often blended with Merlot and smaller amounts of some combination of Cabernet Franc, Malbecand Petit Verdot. In the Napa Valley, ‘Cab’ is responsible for some of the world’s most prestigious, age-worthy and sought-after “cult” wines. Somm Secret—DNA profiling in 1997 revealed that Cabernet Sauvignon was born from a spontaneous crossing of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc in 17th century southwest France.
Responsible for some of Washington’s most highly acclaimed wines, the Walla Walla Valley has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years and is home to both historic wineries and younger, up-and-coming producers.
The Walla Walla Valley, a Native American name meaning “many waters,” is located in southeastern Washington; part of the appellation actually extends into Oregon. Soils here are well-drained, sandy loess over Missoula Flood deposits and fractured basalt.
It is a region perfectly suited to Rhône-inspired Syrahs, distinguished by savory notes of red berry, black olive, smoke and fresh earth. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot create a range of styles from smooth and supple to robust and well-structured. White varieties are rare but some producers blend Sauvignon Blanc with Sémillon, resulting in a rich and round style, and plantings of Viognier, while minimal, are often quite successful.
Of note within Walla Walla, is one new and very peculiar appellation, called the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater. This is the only AVA in the U.S. whose boundaries are totally defined by the soil type. Soils here look a bit like those in the acclaimed Rhône region of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but are large, ancient, basalt cobblestones. These stones work in the same way as they do in Chateauneuf, absorbing and then radiating the sun's heat up to enhance the ripening of grape clusters. The Rocks District is within the part of Walla Walla that spills over into Oregon and naturally excels in the production of Rhône varieties like Syrah, as well as the Bordeaux varieties.