Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
-
Jeb Dunnuck
All Cabernet from a site on the Royal Slope, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Stoneridge Vineyard has a ruby/plum hue as well as complex, medium to full-bodied aromas and flavors of dried tobacco, baking chocolate, spice box, and tapenade. With beautiful red and black currant fruits, a plush, rounded texture, building tannins, and a great finish, it's every bit as good as the 2015, 2016, and 2017. It's another complex, layered, irresistible wine from this estate that will keep for a good decade.
-
James Suckling
Plum, cherry, stewed strawberry, vanilla and toffee on the nose. Some moss and bark. It’s full-bodied with firm, tight-grained tannins. Juicy and polished with intense, spiced and dried-fruit aromas. Chewy finish. Drink or hold.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Stoneridge Vineyard has a dark magenta core and aromas of dusty black cherry skin and black tea before elements of vanilla and sweet oak sway from the glass. Medium to full-bodied, the Cabernet is still tight with a firm tannic backbone before offering dark red fruit essences that lingers with a delightfully expressive, mineral-laced 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.