WASHINGTON STATE WINES

WOODWARD CANYON

With its founding in 1981, Woodward Canyon started as an outgrowth of the Small family's farming activities.  They raised cattle and grew wheat.  Vineyards were planted in the late 1970s.  The "winery" building (an old machine shop) would never lead one to expect this place was the source of such exceptional wines.  This is proof of the old adage "Never judge a book by its cover."  Winemaker Rick Small is a big proponent of locally-grown, Walla Walla-area fruit. 

Over the years, Woodward Canyon has been one of the leaders in Washington State wines and the quality of their products has remained consistently good.  We always look forward to tasting (and drinking) Small's wines.

Today the winery makes quite a range of wines, even dabbling in Piemontese varieties such as Dolcetto and Barbera!  But for the most part, Cabernet and Merlot are the main items of interest

 

One of our favorite wines is Rick's "Artist Series" Cabernet.  The 2018 is a wine which is a traditionally-made Cabernet with some mouth-drying tannins as this is still young. 

Cabernet, Cabernet, Merlot, Petit Verdot and a drop of Syrah, this comes from 4 different vineyard sites, including some estate-grown fruit.
Rick says he's pulling back on the percentage of new French oak they're using, so it's only 28% this vintage. 
We find a hint of wood, but not as much as there had been a decade, or so, ago.

The 2018 can certainly be enjoyed now, but pairing it with something fatty is helpful in balancing the bit of tannin showing presently, too.

 

 

We enjoyed a bottle of the 2009 while visiting Walla Walla...at the restaurant called Brasserie 4 (very good by the way)...the 2009, consumed in 2016, was spot on!
Deep and complex.  And while it was a monster in its youth, today it's rather elegant and refined...

 

 

Woodward Canyon also makes a wine few people know about.  It has the name Charbonneau on the label and you wouldn't know it's a Woodward Canyon wine unless you're in-the-know.  And few are in the loop, frankly.  

It's sold as Charbonneau and that's the name of a vineyard site owned by a fellow named Michael Witherspoon.  The vineyard is closer to Pasco than it is Walla Walla (it's 40 miles, or so, northwest of Walla Walla).  Cabernet and Merlot, although I think newer vintages will have some Petit Verdot from Woodward Canyon's vineyard.
We hope to have a new vintage arriving shortly.

This is a major, world-class property.

Currently available: 
2018 "Artist Series" Cabernet Sauvignon SALE PRICED  $49.99

Jordan Dunn-Small...apparently she's named for prominent Cabernet winemakers.

 

 

L'ECOLE 41

Located in the Walla Walla town of Lowden, this place was once called Frenchtown. The winery was founded in 1983 by the Ferguson family in an old school. Marty Clubb, son-in-law of the Fergusons, is the winemaker. Early efforts didn't impress us much, but in the 1990s this label has vaulted into one of the top properties in Washington.   

Clubb is a partner in a major vineyard project, assuring L'Ecole No. 41 of a source of good quality fruit.  The old school used to cellar all the production, but as the winemaking has improved, the production has grown.  A new winery facility sits behind the neatly-manicured, immaculately-kept old school building.

 

 

 

  

L'Ecole is well-regarded, though, but they seem to fly a bit below the radar, at least here in Northern California.



We tasted a 2018 Cabernet which we liked, but did not find the 2019 to be quite as exciting.
It's from (at least) ten vineyard sites.  The wine is entirely Cabernet Sauvignon...no Merlot or other Bordeaux varieties.
One quarter of the barrels used to mature this wine were brand new, giving the blackcurrant fruit a nice touch of a cedary tone.

We await tasting the 2020...

 

 

 

Currently in stock:  2018 L'ECOLE 41 Columbia Valley CABERNET SAUVIGNON  Sold Out

 

WALLA WALLA VINTNERS

Two former home winemakers say they tried every trick in the book before embarking on a commercial wine adventure.

Gordon Venneri's background is in accounting, while his pal, Dr. Myles Anderson, is  (or was) a professor of psychology.  You might expect someone with the name of Venneri might be of Italian heritage and you'd be correct.  After a trip to Italy in the early 1980s, Venneri and Anderson embarked on a home winemaking project.  In early 2017, Anderson sold his share of the winery to a Portland software developer named Scott Haladay (Viewpoint Construction Software). He's a major wine geek, so we hope the future remains bright here.

 

Armed with Philip Wagner's guide to winemaking, the pair did their best to create satisfying wines for their own amusement.

 

They had a small press, designed for making tiny quantities of apple cider, to help them make wine.  Yeasts and other bits of chemistry came from a local pharmacy.  And necessity being the mother of invention, these fellows use old Coke syrup kegs, plastic buckets and old beer kegs to ferment and age their wines.  They dabbled with oak chips and old, discarded barrels in making their wines. 

Eventually they purchased a brand new oak barrel...a 30 gallon container and, Voila!  Or, Walla! (as some people say it)...the results of aging their Cabernet in a brand new oak barrel were encouraging and they bought more cooperage and finally, things spiraled out of control until one day they opened their own commercial winery.

They credit all their trial-and-error enological experiences with providing a good winemaking background for producing wine today.

Dr. Anderson founded the wine school at the local community college.  It's called the Institute of Enology and Viticulture and it's part of the Walla Walla Community College. 

 

 

 

With the 1995 vintage, Walla Walla Vintners was born as a professional, commercial winery.  And the winery was solely "red wine" winery.  They do not produce any Chardonnay (and probably deserve a medal for that).  But under new ownership since 2017, the winery now does make a Sauvignon Blanc and a Rosé.

The new owners are Scott and Nici Haladay and the winemaker is Derrek Vipond.

 

Here's a snapshot of their winery building:

 

Former owner Gordy Venneri explained they built a nice, serviceable winemaking facility and it's decidedly "farm country" architecture.
He says their label design is pretty much along the lines of that of Bordeaux's Chateau Margaux.

Maybe your eye is keener than ours...

Gordy Venneri is a major Walla Walla wine personality and a real character!

We have been following their wines since the early 2000s.

Cabernet Franc has been a favorite of the crew here at Weimax for many years.
It's different from the Loire Valley-styled wine we like from Napa's Lang & Reed winery.  The Walla Walla Vintners wine is more akin to a Bordeaux-styled wine, showing a nice bit of dark fruit and some cedary, woodsy notes from those oak barrels in the background of the snapshot of Gordy (above).

We found a very good Petit Verdot at this winery.

 

The 2012 Petit Verdot is terrific.   It's a medium bodied red with a nice bit of oak giving it a sort of cedary fragrance and flavor.  Add to the mix the typical dark spice notes of the Petit Verdot grape...quite drinkable now.  They don't make much of this and we understand it's rarely sold outside the cellar door of the winery!


We included a Cabernet Sauvignon from this estate into a blind-tasting of Washington State wines and it finished in first place.  I liked the Leonetti better, though it's two-and-a-half times as costly! 

This is a good producer and should be on anyone's list of worthy wines from Washington State in particular and they're a good source of West Coast red wines in general.

 

Currently in stock:  
2012 WALLA WALLA VINTNERS PETIT VERDOT  $39.99

WALLA WALLA "RED"  SALE $15.99
 

The Long Shadows project is a smallish winery just west of downtown Walla Walla.

The idea is to feature small bottlings of Washington State wines made using the "recipes" of guest winemakers who cast long shadows in their own world.

Allen Shoup, who used to head Stimson Lane (the Chateau Ste. Michelle group of wine brands), has a stable of famous winemakers collaborating to produce Washington State wine.  These include Michel Rolland from Bordeaux, Randy Dunn from Napa, Australia's John Duval (he's been making a wine called Grange for a little winery called Penfolds--see below) and Augustin Huneeus & Philippe Melka who are based in Napa.

The wines are all well-made, so each label is fairly reliable in terms of technical proficiency.

The question for consumers is are they willing to pay a premium price for these wines?

Apparently the answer is "Yes!" as the demand outstrips supply.

We especially like the Poet's Leap Riesling and a Bordeaux-styled blend.

The Riesling is made in collaboration with German wein-meister Armin Diel who owns Schlossgut Diel in the Nahe region.
The Bordeaux blend is made, not by one of their celebrity winemakers, but by Long Shadows' own winemaker Gilles Nicault.

POET'S LEAP

Poet's Leap is the work of Armin Diel, a famous German winemaker and wine expert.  Diel co-authored for many years the guide to German wines, Gault-Millau's annual WeinGuide Deutschland.  

Of course, his own wines were not critiqued, but all the top estates in Germany are profiled and their wines assessed.  

Diel's own wines are excellent...he has to set a good example for others, of course.  And in years of visiting German wineries, I have never heard a bad word about Diel as a critic or winemaker. (Unlike the lambasting one hears from California vintners about the likes of American wine critics!)

 

We ran into Herr Diel in France's Burgundy region in 2018...
We were both at a special tasting event and he sidled up to the table of a good vintner from Alsace and engaged in conversation speaking German.
After a minute, or two, he asked me if I understood what they were speaking about...
And I did have a rough sense of the conversation.

The 2016 vintage Riesling is in the shop, an excellent American Riesling by any measure.  The wine comes from three vineyard sites in Washington State.  The wine captures nice fruity, floral tones along with a bit of a citrusy tang.  There's about off-dry with less sweetness than previous vintages, though the wine is balanced so that it finishes crisply and is not cloying. 

We were delighted to taste a 2008 vintage in June of 2022...still quite alive and kicking.  It was not showing any signs of age or, at least, being old and fading...

 

 

Currently in stock:  2016 Poet's Leap Columbia Valley Riesling Sale $19.99

SEQUEL

Allen Shoup enticed Australian winemaker John Duval to come to Washington State when he's not busy making Penfolds' "Grange" and make a wine in the States.

Duval's wine is dubbed "Sequel" and while it would be tempting to say it's the equal of Penfolds' Grange, that would be building up one's expectations to nearly unreachable levels.

Coming over to visit the vineyards during the growing season, Duval sized up various vineyard parcels.   The sources seem to have changed quite a bit from 2004 to 2005...and they're a bit coy in revealing information about the vinification, but then the wine was matured in both French and American oak.  Duval was then able to select his favorite barrels and assemble the final blend.  The wine is 96% Syrah and 4% Cabernet.

We find lots of nice dark fruit notes to the wine.  It's certainly not a ringer for a French Rhône wine, but nor is it particularly reminiscent of Aussie Shiraz.  There's a nice bit of wood here, but I don't find it as hugely oaky as a Grange, for example.  It's also not as ripe as some vintages of Grange, either.  Still, it's pretty nice West Coast Syrah.  

Currently in stock:  2005 Sequel Washington State Syrah SALE $55.99

 

Winemaker Gilles Nicault shows off a bottle of his handiwork.

CHESTER KIDDER

This is another wine in the Long Shadows' portfolio (see Poet's Leap and Sequel, above)...

The venture features "celebrity" winemakers, hoping they can produce some of their "magic" on foreign turf in Washington state.

While other wines are produced using the names of Michel Rolland, Philippe Melka, Armin Diel and Randy Dunn, the Chester Kidder wine is made by a fellow who's not regarded as an "eno-celebrity," but who's making wine which may be superior to those of the various luminaries.  

Gilles Nicault attended the University of Avignon in France's Rhone Valley.  He came to the US and took a job at Staton Hills in the Yakima Valley.  We met him years ago when he was working for Rick Small at Woodward Canyon (aha!  So that's where he learned how to make Cabernet and Merlot!!).  These days he's in charge of the cellar at Long Shadows and we can say it's Gilles who casts the longest shadow at this enterprise.

The Chester Kidder wine is a brand dreamed up by winery owner (and former Ste. Michelle bigwig) Allen Shoup.  Shoup's grandpappy was named Charles Chester and granny was Maggie Kidder.  

The stated goal is to "make a wine illustrating how good a Washington State red wine can be."  I'd say "yeah, yeah, yeah" in my usual skeptical fashion.  I'm not from Missouri, but I still always say "show me."

But most of the vintages of Chester Kidder that we have tasted have been winners.  And, interestingly enough, for our tastes, this is the real star of the Long Shadows portfolio.  Yet while many people in the wine world know the names of Randy Dunn, Philippe Melka and Michel Rolland, it's their "house" wine which is the best wine on the Long Shadows' table.

We've tasted various vintages since the 2013 and have found the wines to be of good quality, but priced ambitiously.
When we find one which represents good value, we will bring it in.  The 2017, priced around $65, struck us as a wine worthy of $50.

Currently in stock:  2013 CHESTER KIDDER Columbia Valley RED WINE Sold Out

The vinification cellar at Long Shadows.

 

Barrel cellar at Long Shadows

 

Tasting at Long Shadows...they have a nice little program to show off their wines.
Visitors to Walla Walla should consider booking a tasting here to see how the "guest" winemakers handle Washington State fruit.


The old wine biz bromide is "Buy on apples, Sell on Cheese" is adhered to at Long Shadows.

 

DELILLE

This remarkable winery has lofty ambitions in terms of producing wines worthy of comparison with the best of Bordeaux (and the Rhone, come to think of it).

They're doing quite a good job.

It's the work of insurance man Greg Lill and wine broker Jay Soloff.  Lill's father, the late Charles Lill, owned a property in Woodinville, Washington.  Dad gave his blessing for his son, Soloff and former home winemaker Chris Upchurch to launch a winery project on the site, though the senior Lill had thought the place might be suitable as a brewery, restaurant or bed & breakfast place.

The founders had some help from Washington wine legend David Lake, who guided them to some great vineyard sources and in 1992 the first Delille wines were produced.

They began making some showy red wines along the lines of Bordeaux.  
Now they've had a killer white wine which is a doppelganger for one of our favorite French white wines, Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte.  It's a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, most of which is fermented in small French oak (60% new) and a small fraction which is vinified in stainless steel.  

The 2020 is 72% Sauvignon Blanc with 28% Semillon.

The wine displays the herbal, lemon-grass notes we used to find in the Smith-Haut-Lafitte, along with showy, toasty oak.

We've had this wine available for sampling in our tasting room and it routinely is met with enthusiasm from customers who don't mind shelling out the thirty-five clams it takes to acquire a bottle.

And given that Smith-Haut-Lafitte goes for north of $100 a bottle, this seems like a bargain.

 

Currently in stock:  2020 DELILLE "Chaleur Estate" Columbia Valley Dry White  $34.99

KIONA VINEYARDS

John Williams and a research scientist colleague (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) named Jim Holmes bought some acreage in the 1970s and decided to gamble by planting a vineyard.  They had 84 acres of dirt but no water and no electricity.  

Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Riesling were planted, evenly split between 12 acres.  

 

Here's one of their original vines...died "Due to Tractor Blight."


Electricity was brought in from 3 miles away and they dug a well 500 feet deep and it was drier than a Non-dosaged Champagne.  The well digger asked if they wanted to quit at that point or roll the dice and keep going.  They doubled down and, just a few feet deeper, hit water.  Now they could grow grapes in the desert!
These days if you ask John Williams how deep the wells are he won't respond in terms of feet, but usually explains theirs is about $100,000 deep.
That's a profound explanation!


The region became known as the Red Mountain appellation or American Viticultural Area.  

Back in the 1960s, California's E&J Gallo winery had a brand of wine called "Red Mountain."  They later changed the label to "Carlo Rossi," the name of one of their sales team.  Gallo's top table in those days was called "Gallo Hearty Burgundy," while the slightly more economical brand was "Red Mountain."  

Today you'll find Scott Williams, John & Ann's son, taking care of the extensive acreage at Chateau Kiona.  He and his wife Vicky are joined by their son, Comedian JJ Williams, in running this remarkable and pioneering enterprise.

JJ explains that many Washington state wineries simply buy grapes to make their wines.  And there are numerous vineyard or grape grower enterprises which simply sell grapes.  "We're different in that we do it all!  We planted the vines, we cultivate the vines and we make a bit of wine.  Mostly, though, we sell grapes.  And many of the top wineries in Washington buy our Kiona fruit."

From their tasting facility atop the winery in the Benton City environs, one can look out a picture window and survey the sights and sites.

The cellar is spacious as they sell most of their grapes.  The wines they make are produced with an eye towards showcasing their fruit for both consumers and potential grape buyers.
That's third generation Kiona Ambassador J.J. Williams.

The winery is well-regarded for its wide variety of wines, but they enjoy making a red wine of the Lemberger (Austria's  Blaufränkisch) in a light style.
In a sea of Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah, Kiona offers a small oasis of Lemberger.
They have a bit more than 13 acres of this grape and are currently making approximately 4,000 cases annually.
It's well-priced and offers wine drinkers something a bit off the beaten path at a very reasonable price.

We currently have their 2013 Red Mountain appellation of Lemberger.  It's a mild red with the weight of a Pinot Noir.  It displays hints of red berry fruit and it's not a deep or complex red, so pair it with appropriate food.  It can pair well with a range of lighter foods.  Chicken, pork, vegetarian dishes, cheeses, etc. can match this nicely.  
We suggest serving it at cool cellar temperature as the wine is fairly soft and dry.

Currently in stock:  2013 KIONA "Red Mountain" LEMBERGER  $13.99

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