Winemaker Notes
The 2014 vintage was smaller and slightly cooler, yet at the same time gave impressive quality. Beautifully mature fruit was achieved through rigorous shoot thinning, leaf stripping and green harvesting.
This "Artist Series" Cabernet Sauvignon is produced from grapes selected from some of the finest and most highly regarded vineyards in Washington State and the Walla Walla Valley. Each produces fantastic wine in their own right; when blended they produce extraordinary wine. This wine shows brighter fruit than the 2013.
This enticing and deeply colored red wine shows a complex nose of baking spice, black olive and graham integrated beautifully with aromas of ripe black fruits. In the mouth the wine is rich and elegant, showing subtle notes of herb and black berry. Integrated tannins enhance the texture and give proportion; the finish is complex, generous, and long. While this wine can be enjoyed now it will benefit greatly from additional cellaring and, with proper storage, should develop for ten years or more.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Artist Series checks in as a blend of 92% Cab Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot that spent 22 months in 60% new French oak. Like all the wines here, it's inky colored. Exhibiting a great bouquet of fresh blueberries, leafy herbs, violets, and wet stone, with subtle background oak, this beauty is full-bodied, wonderfully pure, layered, and textured. It's one of the standouts in the lineup.
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James Suckling
Tar and dark berry aromas with hints of dark chocolate. Full body, round and velvety tannins and a flavorful finish. A bigger, more fruit-forward style. Drink or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
Fruit for this wine comes from top sites Champoux, Sagemoor, Woodward Canyon Estate and Summit View vineyards. It brings classic Cabernet Sauvignon aromas of black currant, black cherry and herbs along with generous barrel spices. The black-fruit and coffee flavors are lush and full, bringing a real sense of hedonism and delight.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Rocking notes of spice, incense, black raspberries and dried flowers all emerge from the 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Artist Series (92% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot), and it's a complex, nuanced, impeccably balanced beauty! With medium to full-bodied richness, no hard edges and notable purity, drink it anytime over the coming decade or more.
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Wine Spectator
Well-built, with a firm backbone wrapped in rich and expressive notes of blackberry, green olive and clove, lingering toward big but refined tannins. Drink now 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.