WA duo over the weekend

For the WA-philes here:

2009 Sleight of Hand Archimage RW.
Opaque blue-ish and some purple. Nose and palate are dominated by a melange of blue fruit, blackberries, currants, plums with a coating of dust. Noted good structure with some leathery tannins and an overall sense of full integration, except perhaps a minor hint of sharp acidity was surprising at this stage. Had some dustiness and coffee in the nose but little in the way of secondary development in the nose. Pretty much the same on day 2. I was really searching for some secondary development but found none. This is a 50/50 blend of merlot and cab franc and I detected little CF character but wine was stored under less than ideal conditions but not badly stored. A tasty and enjoyable wine that hasn’t gotten more interesting with age. 3+ (out of 5).

2014 Cayuse God Only Knows Grenache
Vivid red color of medium darkness and extraction. First, strawberry, raspberry with a little citrus. Lots of non-fruit savory elements that were hard to pin down, black tea, alder wood, bay leaf, thyme but secondary to the gorgeous fruit. Strawberry particularly strong in this wine which I usually find in abundance only in lightly extracted Grenache. A hint of typical Walla Walla rocks character but I would have not picked that up if served blind. A high impact sensory wine delivered with elegance, transparency, almost like a great Volnay PC. One of the best wines of the year. Day 2 much the same with savory notes a little more prominent. 4+ (out of 5), easy.

Certified WA-phile here, 2 of my favorite producers, great notes!

And two days to Cayuse allocations! I pulled the Grenache out of the cellar to help form an opinion on continuing to order the GOK and now I have no doubt I’ll continue to buy it. Cheers.

It was that Merlot that did in the SoH!!
Tom

Haha glad you’re still on board, I will also be ordering GOK once again, now I just need to convince some people to drop their BF allocations

Just a little Oregon homerism but I believe that GOK is Oregon wine!!

Haha not wrong!

Well Tom, isn’t Merlot the Rodney Dangerfield of grapes? Gets no respect.

Interesting development with the Rocks District AVA. I haven’t kept up on how many wineries are using it on their labels. WA has the reputation for Syrah much more than Oregon so I could imagine Syrah producers wanting to keep the WW designation.