Wine Blogging Wednesday #34 - Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon

For domaine547, this is Wine Blogging Wednesday #1, as we’ve never participated before. We’ll do our best and give it a good college try. However, our efforts have been hampered a bit by our inability to locate any Walla Walla wines in Los Angeles. This is a little shocking to us. You’d think there would be some depth in a wine friendly town like ours (of course, we say this as a wine retailer who had to go to other wine retailers to get any wines from Washington, since we currently have none in our inventory…we’re new, give us a break on this one!).

In any case, we tried the major stores — Wally’s, Wine House, even K&L which we normally try to avoid (since we’re loyal to Larchmont Wine just nearby) — but came up dry. Larchmont did have one bottle which we bought, and proceded to drop on Sunset Boulevard before we got a chance to open it. Yup, we weren’t even drunk and we dropped a $30 bottle of wine in the middle of the Sunset Strip.

If we’d planned in advance, we might have been able to order a nice selection from Avalon Wine, which seems to have access to a deep array Oregon and Washington producers; however, they can’t promise that shipping will occur until approximately a week from the order date, so this wasn’t an option for us. Ultimately we settled on three Columbia Valley wines, only to find out that the Columbia Valley is both in Oregon and in Washington. And then there were two.

So here are the two Washington Columbia Valley wines we tasted, along with a brief write-up on the third wine that wound up being from Oregon (not to mention only 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, of which we were aware, but we were so desperate to find wines that we would have made an exception, should the wine have actually been from Washington State).

2004 Abeja Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

There’s a beautiful nose on this wine. All sorts of elements to it. First there’s fruit, which is very red and concentrated but not jammy. Then comes some cedar plank, some cinnamon and a little bit of smokiness. In the mouth, this same sort of evolution is present. First fruit, then layers of herbs and spice. The mouthfeel on this is fairly smooth, without much graininess or earth, the tannins and acidity are each on the mild end of the spectrum. If it ended there, we’d be very happy.

Unfortunately, as we took our second taste and swished it around, the sense on our palate was of an overly vegetal and over-oaked wine. The fruit became overwhelmed and dominated by eucalyptus and menthol, and some other unidentifiable green elements. Asparagus? Green beans? Swiss Chard? All of the above? We never would have guessed this from the elegant nose and initial tasting.

This wine is by no means a total write-off. It has quite a few things going for it, including that phenomenal nose. But at $40, we would expect a little more elegance on the finish. We probably won’t buy this one again as it doesn’t represent quite enough of a value for us stingy types.

2005 Owen Roe Columbia Valley Sharecropper’s Cabernet Sauvignon

We confirmed that the fruit for this wine is indeed from the correct side of the Oregon/Washington border; more specifically, it comes from Dr. Steve Elerding’s Six Prong Vineyard in Alderdale, Washington. We’ve had Owen Roe wines before, including the Abbot’s Table blend which is a bit over the top for our palates, and the Sinister Hand Rhone-style blend, which we like quite a bit.

Costing about $22 a bottle, the Sharecropper’s Cabernet Sauvignon is quite a reasonable wine for what you get. In the glass, the wine is a deep ruby color with some translucence but on the verge of being opaque. The aromas on this are of red cherries and some ripe black plums. There’s an all-spice element as well, and a bit of vanilla. Wow, we feel like we just described a cobbler (supposedly aged in neutral oak, we’re not sure where these latter elements come from).

In any case, the wine is more stewed blue fruit than either black or red on the palate, quite concentrated though this somehow avoids becoming a wine of the fruit-bomb variety. There’s a little caraway or anise on the finish, but it doesn’t really distract from the fruit in any negative way. The tannins and acidity are very nicely balanced, with a pleasant dustiness to the mouthfeel and a solid, lingering finish.

Of these two wines, the Owen Roe Sharecropper’s Cab wins big-time. It’s a really well made wine at a more than fair price. It’s something we can see pairing well with all sorts of food, especially some ribs on the barbecue. It’s also something we can see drinking on its own, watching the sun go down. This one is a no-brainer for us. In fact, we may have to give a call to the distributor and pick some up for our shop.

2005 Sineann Columbia Valley Blend

This wine gets a DQ since it’s from the Oregon portion of Columbia Valley. However, it would have gotten DQ’d anyway, since it was about the biggest disappointment we’ve experienced in quite some time. We’ve loved Sineann wines in the past. In fact, we’re going to be carrying a couple in our store. We were really excited when we cut the foil and saw that it was closed with a glass capsule. The bottle looked beautiful with this crystal clear adornment. We were ready to love this.

Alas, it was not meant to be. The wine, comprised of only 24% Cabernet Sauvignon (and a bunch of other varietals) is 100% blech. When you drink a wine and the first thing that comes into your head is the sense-memory of a locker room wafting with aromas of Ben-Gay, you know that something has gone terribly awry. No wine should taste of Tiger Balm. This cost us around $17 or so, and we clearly won’t be buying the 2005 vintage again. We’ll chalk this up to a failed experiment from the otherwise talented Sineann folks.
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So, there you have it. 3 wines. 2 from Washington. 1 wine we’d love to have again. Until next time. Thanks go out to the Wild Walla Walla Wine Woman for hosting this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday! Please go there to see reviews of more Washington wines, from wine bloggers the world over.

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