Winemaker Notes
This is just a spectacular Cabernet Sauvignon from the Columbia Valley! This medium bodied wine is both lithe and expressive, with embracing tannins wrapping gently around a focused core of dried herb-accented black cherry and licorice flavors, dancing with finesse on the finish.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon offers more purity and elegance, with impressive cassis and blackberry fruits, a kiss of graphite and tobacco, medium body, and a polished, balanced, elegant style. It's a terrific, outstanding Cabernet that will keep for over a decade.
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Wine Enthusiast
Aromas of cedar, tobacco, anise, fresh herbs, cherry and dried thyme are followed by plush tar and cherry flavors that bring a pleasing sense of intensity. Tasty stuff.
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Wine Spectator
A lively red, focused and plump, with black cherry, toasted spice and cedar notes that gather elegant structure toward refined tannins. Drink now through 2029.
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James Suckling
A somewhat biscuity edge to the nose with baking spices that are infused into violet flowers and blue fruit. The palate has a gently firm edge that holds flavor long with a succulent and freshly appealing edge to the finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley is a blend of 95% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Petit Verdot and 1% Malbec. It opens with aromas of red plum, blackcurrant, cassis, dried earth, sweet oak, and floral tones. The palate shows the wine turning more red fruited and lighter, becoming slightly more tart and revealing good focus and balance. Subtle spice tones build on the mid-palate, and the wine finishes with a firm tannic grip. I am positive that this will get better in a year or two.
Rating: 90+ -
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: The 2016 Dusted Valley Cabernet Sauvignon brings an attractive richness on the palate and a lasting finish. TASTING NOTES: This wine offers generous ripe red and black fruit aromas and flavors. Enjoy it with grilled chicken thighs. (Tasted: May 23, 2020, San Francisco, CA)
Washington produces so many exciting wines, and that definitely includes Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. With over 10,000 acres under vine, Cabernet Sauvignon is now the most widely-grown varietal in the state. Terrific examples hail from sub-appellations like Red Mountain, Wahluke Slope, Horse Heaven Hills and Walla Walla Valley. One of the fascinations of these Columbia Valley Cabs is that they so often seem to have one foot in the New World and one in the Old. Representing the former are characteristics like the ripe, forward fruit that results from long sunny days during the growing season (up to two hours longer than in much of California). Old World similarities include an undeniable brightness from acidity, as well as notes of herbs, graphite and a dusty, sometimes gravelly minerality.
Whether you’re looking for a budget bottle for everyday enjoyment, or a stellar, world-class wine with tremendous aging potential, Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon wines can deliver the goods! Among the many fine options are bottles from Columbia Crest, Chateau Ste. Michelle, L’ecole #41, Quilceda Creek and Leonetti.