Winemaker Notes
This wine has a generous nose of spicy oak and cedar integrated with bright and very ripe black fruits and cherry. A sweet, rich mouth feel begins with cassis and ripe black berry, leading towards chocolate and mocha. The finish is complex, generous, and long. While this wine can be enjoyed now it will definitely benefit from additional cellaring and, with proper storage, should develop for eight years or more.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The purple-colored 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Artist Series contains 1% Petit Verdot. The fruit was sourced primarily from the famous Champoux Vineyard in which the winery is a partner and the Sagemoor Vineyard, one of the oldest in the state. The Sagemoor fruit for this wine was taken from vines planted in 1972. The wine delivers a splendid nose of smoke, mineral, Asian spices, violets, black currant, and blackberry. This is followed by a medium to full-bodied wine with a velvety texture, excellent depth, savory flavors, plenty of volume, and a lengthy finish. It will continue blossoming for another 3-4 years and should provide pleasure through its 20th birthday.
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Wine Enthusiast
The latest Artist Serices Cab is mostly old vine Champoux vineyard fruit, and displays single-vineyard character as a result. Big, powerful, full round black cherry fruit grabs the center, just on the edge of jammy, supported with juicy acidity. This wine is still quite young and edgy, but will reward cellaring over a decade or more, as is usually the case with Woodward Canyon Cabs.
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.