Winemaker Notes
Powerful and serious on the nose. Dark and brooding. Purple and black fruit with gravel, green herb and exotic spice. Secondary flavors of Kenyan coffee, sweet cream and stone. Baking spices of clove, vanilla and cinnamon from new French oak. As rich on the palate as the nose with smoke, tar, pencil shavings and cedar. Firm, grippy tannins with medium-plus acidity. Hugely structured and powerful with extremely long length. A Cabernet lover’s dream vintage.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Blended with the addition of 9% Petit Verdot and 5% Merlot, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is an instant success. The nose is wrapped in gorgeous, complex aromas of cigar box, pencil shavings and graphite followed by dark red fruits, blackberry and oak spices tied to spicy florals. Full-bodied, the wine is layered, precise and finessed on the palate, with gobs of picturesque black fruit flavors and elegant oak tones that give way to a firm mineral tension and fine-grained tannins. This will remain food-friendly well past its 20th birthday and is a masterclass of what Washington Cabernet Sauvignon can achieve. Bravo!
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Wine & Spirits
Here is a showstopper. This big-shouldered cabernet from Bacchus, with a contribution from old blocks at Phinny Hill, is broad and powerful even as it shows a kind of savory restraint, mushroom, bramble and a deep panoply of berry fruits. All of this is driven by firm and controlled acidity, which combines with dusty tannins for a vinous, grippy finish. It’s got a long life ahead of it; cellar.
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Wine Enthusiast
This producer always eschews big, bold Cabernet in favor of wines crafted to be consumed with food, and that is what we have here. The aromas offer notes of flower, tea, herb, black cherry, clove and chocolate. The palate is juicy and restrained, with a grip of tannins on the finish. Give this until at least 2028 to fully reap the rewards. It will have more than a decade of great drinking beyond that.
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James Suckling
Aromas of plump blackcurrants, plums and sap. Full-bodied with soft tannins and sharp acidity. Rich and intense. Stony finish.
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.