Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This rich but balanced wine is saturated with black cherry, black olive, star anise and dark plum flavors on a suave texture backed by fine-grained tannins. Excellent depth of flavor and a lingering finish add to its high marks.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley is a classic example of the vintage, offering lots of ripeness yet staying nicely balanced, light on its feet and more medium-bodied. Ripe red and blue fruits, tobacco leaf, lead pencil, and candied flower notes all define the aromatics, and it has ripe tannins, a layered, elegant mouthfeel, and the class to evolve gracefully for 10-12+ years.
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Wine Enthusiast
The Northstar's floral notes of phlox and maple-like Sweet Everlastings unite with a ripe dark raspberry aroma in enticing fashion. If that floral perfume doesn't get you, the wine's blackberry cobbler and black tea flavors will. These tannins are to the grippy side, with a chewy mouthfeel, so prepare to decant.
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Vinous
The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon is coy in the glass, darkly floral and inward, showing just a hint of blackberry and autumnal spice. This is a soothingly round and soft effort, with ripe red and black fruits that slowly saturate. Fine tannins frame the finish as the 2021 leaves the palate stained in a tart berry concentration.
Northstar, located in Walla Walla, Washington, aims to make Merlots that can be considered among the world's best, using fruit sourced from one of the world's best regions for the variety: Washington state. Winemaker, David "Merf" Merfeld, blends New World fruit with an old world winemaking style, influenced by Bordeaux's "right bank," to create his highly-acclaimed wines. Northstar produces two Merlot-based wines from the Columbia Valley and Walla Walla AVAs, as well as the Stella Maris red blend and extremely limited production bottlings of the blending component varieties that Merf uses as his "spice box" in creating Northstar's Merlots.
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.