Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon is lighter in color and has a subdued nose at first. After getting the glass spinning, the wine reveals its secrets with sweet oak tones, dark red fruit and wilted red flowers. The Cabernet is juicy with layers of redcurrants and cassis as it shows defined notions of black plum and dark cherry skin in the glass. Full-bodied, the wine bursts with kaleidoscopic sensations, boasting power and precision that shares many of the same key elements of cult Napa Cabernet bottlings and worthy of the coveted triple digits. With impeccable weight and texture, the wine offers up an excellent palate with purity of fruit flavors and silky French oak essences that wind down in the mouth, with impeccably balanced tannins across the mid-palate. Seeing the progression of Quilceda Creek over the 20-year vertical tasting, I am completely surprised by how well the 2013 is showing, as it has had plenty of time to harmonize in the bottle and round out its edges.
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Wine Spectator
Broad and expressive, layering black cherry, plum, pear and black tea flavors into a beam that focuses the finish against well-managed but present tannins. Has depth, marvelous expression and length. Best from 2018 through 2025.
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.