Winemaker Notes
This "Old Vines" Cabernet Sauvignon is rich and complex yet shows elegance, restraint and sophistication. It expresses the purity of fully mature cabernet sauvignon that one only can get from 35 year old vines. The color is dark red to purple and has complex aromas of earth, cherry, leather and smoke. Flavors of ripe black cherries and cassis married with spicy new oak and vanilla coat the mouth. The texture is soft and silky yet there are mature integrated tannins in the rich, long finish. I love the proportion this red wine displays and with proper storage, it should age for ten years easily.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Pure Cabernet from some of Washington's oldest vines at Champoux and Sagemoor, this is a superb bottle, dense, compact and textural. A full mix of black fruits underscored with clean, moist earth and polished, silky tannins, finishes with pretty barrel flavors of spice and vanilla. Broad, deep and immensely pleasurable.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Old Vines is 100% varietal with the fruit sourced from the Champoux (74%) and Sagemoor (26%) vineyards. It was aged in 100% new French oak. Deep purple-colored, it gives up a brooding bouquet of pain grille, pencil lead, truffle, Asian spices, incense, violets, black currant, and blackberry. On the palate it is full-bodied, incipiently complex, silky textured, and impeccably balanced. Give it an additional 5-7 years of bottle age and drink it from 2016 to 2032.
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.