2006 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Palengat Vineyard

This is the first vintage of the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Palengat Vineyard, located in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA. The wine also contains 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot. Purple-colored, it offers up a splendid perfume of wood smoke, spice box, pencil lead, espresso, violets, black currant, and blackberry. Full-bodied, plush, and concentrated, it is already revealing considerable complexity despite the youth of the vines. In spite of its size, the wine manages to retain a sense of elegance, a trademark of all of Quilceda Creek’s wines. Give it 5-7 years of additional bottle age and drink it from 2015 to 2026. In 1990, in Issue 69, after tasting a complete vertical of Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon, I wrote that the winery was producing Washington’s (and possibly America’s) finest Cabernet Sauvignon. Little has changed in the intervening years. The winery has been upgraded and the portfolio has been expanded, while quality remains at the summit. As a postscript, I was able to taste barrel samples of the 2007 collection. The Golitzins describe it as an “exceptional vintage” a conclusion that I cannot dispute. The latest releases are from the 2006 vintage, a bit more challenging than 2005 or 2007, but a solid year by any standard. Tel. (360) 568-2389; www.quilcedacreek.com