February 11, 2013

Dear Friends,

Despite the challenging growing conditions, our production was back up to normal in 2010. Some vineyards failed to produce a healthy crop due to the abnormally cool weather. But all of our growers did an outstanding job and were able to pick healthy grapes for us at complete ripeness.

This year’s open house will be Saturday, March 9, 12 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and by invitation only, i.e. limited to members of our mailing list.

2010 Champoux Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon –  This vintage is a blend of five blocks of Cabernet Sauvignon (84%) plus Cabernet Franc and Merlot. The character of this wine has been called “aristocratic” or “classy” by the critics – that ephemeral character resulting from a combination of power, concentration, lush texture and nuance. Because of a severe freeze after harvest in 2010, the yield from this vineyard was greatly reduced in 2011. Consequently, we did not produce a Champoux wine in 2011 and production will be very low in 2012. So we suggest you buy all you can of this vintage. We are hoping that our future allocation of grapes will go back up to normal as the old vines return to health and the new vines begin producing. 

Paul Champoux in the vineyard

2010 Ciel du Cheval Vineyard Bordeaux Blend –  The cooler weather resulted in a blend with lively acidity (pH 3.57 for you fellow wine geeks). The acid combined with the usual abundant tannins and concentrated flavors will make this an extremely long-lived wine. It will be interesting to see how it evolves over the next 20+ years. The blend is 59% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Cabernet Franc and 8% Merlot. The terroir is unmistakable because of the combination of complex black fruit flavors and minerality. This site and Champoux are two of the iconic vineyards in Washington State.

 Dave & Ryan (Vineyard Manager) at Ciel du Cheval

2010 Artist Series #10 – The one word I would use to best describe this wine is “balance”, i.e. balance between the acid, tannin, alcohol, flavors and oak. It is 49% Cabernet Franc, 44% Cabernet Sauvignon and 7% Merlot. The Cab Franc component provides the fruit and floral aromas while the Cab adds structure and the Merlot contributes herbal flavors. The beautiful artwork for the label was created by American Abstract Expressionist, Herman Cherry.

2010 Palisade– I thought we really hit our stride with this wine in 2009 and this vintage is very similar in style. As big believers in Washington State Merlot, we continue to seek out the best Merlot vineyards to reach our goal of producing a world-class Merlot. This year’s wine is 89% Merlot and 11% Cabernet Sauvignon. The style favors the earthy and herbaceous flavors in place of the fruit-forward character more typical for this varietal.

2010 Commander Comet – Sadly, this is our last vintage of Syrah. Discontinuing this wine was an extremely difficult decision. But it was necessary to make room for a couple more exciting new wines from great new vineyard sources. This vintage is again 100% Syrah from the Lewis and Riverbend vineyard aged in once-used French oak barrels to highlight the deliciously pure varietal flavors.

2010 Sundance – We were fortunate to have extra Champoux Vineyard Cab to blend into this wine. And it shows in the extra depth and more elegant texture. It is a blend of 50% Cab, 31% Merlot and 19% Cabernet Franc. All the grapes are sourced from the same vineyards and aged for the same length of time in French oak barrels as all our other wines. It has the perennially popular combination of delicious fruit and approachable structure and continues to be heralded as a great value for its quality to price ratio.

We hope you consider all of our wines to be good values. The financial challenge for us is that the best vineyards also have the most expensive grape prices and those prices have been going up. This, of course, increases our costs and puts upward pressure on our wine prices.