Winemaker Notes
This wine’s deep ruby color with garnet hues exemplifies the Bordeaux varietals within. Floral violets and bright red currants balance toasty vanilla oak and dark Damson plum notes. A juicy and elegant acidity opens to complex wood spices, giving this luxurious wine a youthful and beautifully proportioned palate that will only improve with time.
Blend: 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Bursting from the glass with a plushy sensation of juicy blueberry, blackberry reduction, spiced plum sauce and beautiful, seductive oak tones that waft with the classic mineral essence of Red Mountain, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Upchurch Vineyard is perfumed and seduces the nose with each sniff. Full-bodied, generous and juicy, the mid-palate shows impeccable balance, with a generous amount of fruit-forwardness and managing to seamlessly weave into the 100% new French oak expression, showing lifting tannins and energetic acidity to make this wine last for two decades. Ending with a long, evolving finish, the wine continues to bring pleasure for moments after it has left the palate. This is a rockstar wine from a rockstar winemaker.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The dense purple/plum-colored 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon is up with the finest wines from Chris. A blend of 91% Cabernet Sauvignon and 9% Merlot, this beauty boasts an awesome bouquet of currants, tobacco, cedar wood, lead pencil, and chocolate. This carries to a full-bodied Red Mountain Cabernet offering a great mid-palate, terrific purity, and enough tannins to warrant at least 2-4 years of bottle age. It’s young and unevolved, but just a joy to taste today. Rating: 95+
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James Suckling
Dark cherries, hot stones, damp earth, dried violets and chocolate orange on the nose. It’s full-bodied with firm, chewy tannins. Concentrated and dense. This is a bigger style with lots of wood and rich fruit, so give it some time. Try from 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
The aromas draw you into the glass, with notes of dark raspberry, black cherry, scorched earth and spice. The flavors are arresting, showing plenty of depth, polish and class along with exceptional length. There's a lot of seriousness to it. Give it time in the cellar to see it at its best. Drink after 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.
A coveted source of top quality red grapes among premier Washington producers, the Red Mountain AVA is actually the smallest appellation in the state. As its name might suggest, it is actually neither a mountain nor is it composed of red earth. Instead the appellation is an anticline of the Yakima fold belt, a series of geologic folds that define a number of viticultural regions in the surrounding area. It is on the eastern edge of Yakima Valley with slopes facing southwest towards the Yakima River, ideal for the ripening of grapes. The area’s springtime proliferation of cheatgrass, which has a reddish color, actually gives the area the name, "Red" Mountain.
Red Mountain produces some of the most mineral-driven, tannic and age-worthy red wines of Washington and there are a few reasons for this. It is just about the hottest appellation with normal growing season temperatures commonly reaching above 90F. The soil is particularly poor in nutrients and has a high pH, which results in significantly smaller berry sizes compared to varietal norms. The low juice to skin ratio in smaller berries combined with the strong, dry summer winds, leads to higher tannin levels in Red Mountain grapes.
The most common red grape varieties here are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Syrah, among others. Limited white varieties are grown, namely Sauvignon blanc.
The reds of the area tend to express dark black and blue fruit, deep concentration, complex textures, high levels of tannins and as previously noted, have good aging capabilities.