Winemaker Notes
Blend: 82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Malbec, 8% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A very deep and quite lusciously fruited style with ripe mulberries, plums and cassis on the nose. The cedary oak chimes in nicely on the palate with a plush and succulent core of blackcurrants, plums and cherries. Chalky tannins hold nicely at the finish. A blend of 82% cabernet sauvignon, 8% malbec, 8% cabernet franc and 2% petit verdot. Drink in the next eight years.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon checks in as a blend of 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 4% Malbec, and 2% each of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. It offers a more forward, blue-fruited, graphite, and scorched earth bouquet, yet firms up nicely on the palate with fine, building tannin and a great finish. It's another ripe yet pure wine from this team.
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Wine Enthusiast
This blend from Seven Hills (56%), Octave (24%), Pepper Bridge (14%) and Yellow Jacket Vineyards offers coffee bean, toast, fresh herb, flower, orange peel, blackberry and black cherry aromas followed by well-balanced fruit and barrel flavors that stretch out on the finish. The tannins bring some grip. Best after 2022.
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Wine Spectator
Refined and focused, with compelling blackberry, black tea and graphite accents that build tension toward fine-grained tannins. Best from 2021 through 2027.
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.