Cayuse weekend TN 12'

Drove out Friday morning through snow and then on to overcast 65 degree weather, a nice respite from our dreary spring opener here in the great PNW. I had opened and decanted a 99’ Quilceda Cab and a 00’ Cadence Reserve around 8 in the morning that we would consume around 7pm. We arrived and immediately went over to K cellars, where we tried the Viognier, ‘Evergreen’ Viognier, Mildbrandt Syrah, Beautiful, ‘Evergreen’ Cab, ‘Royal City’ Syrah. The viogniers were an interesting contrast as the regular had a whiff of catpee and the ‘Evergreen’ was much more oaked and stylistic. The ‘Royal City’ was much more toned down than years past with less VA and a bunch more character.
Wines after dinner…I don’t have a lot of current QC experience but I have had many older and found them to have a bit of structure and fruit, I have read reviews on the 99’ that have had many mixed results, but this wine was firing, structured, cassis, old world styled as to were the Cadence was a big, dense, fruit monster that has many years to go. I found the QC ready to go but at it’s plateau.

Saturday morning we headed out in a 74’ white El Dorado with the top down, great weather and on to our first stop Garrison Creek.
Garrison is a fun place that is an architectural marvel, it’s amazing, no penny spared, it’s huge and they only make something like 600 cases but have 300 acres planted. The tour and barrel tasting are great and Dave is a very gracious host, no standouts as I was nursing my head ache from the night before.
On to Rasa…Rasa is a winery that we found a couple of years ago as we were planning our Saturday attack. Billo and Pinto are soft spoken and incredibly nice and make wines from mostly everywhere but Walla Walla. For my palate the ‘Rhone style blends’ are not exciting me anymore but the Vox Populi is one of my favorites %100 Mourvedre, I didn’t get to try the 10’ as it was just bottled but bought on last year. The lime light was a cool Petit Verdot based wine that had great balance and length and both of their Syrahs were delicious.
Reynvaan- Was good, ‘On the foothills’? something like that, was my favorite of the bunch, they were all very nice but didn’t really hit my pocketbook to buy. I liked the funk and Game.

Cayuse- Love the Pate, Olive tapanade and the meatballs…
09’ GOK- Skunk, musk, pretty florals, red fruit, game, funk, great smooth palate with medium acidity and really nice balance.

10’ Widow Maker- Vanilla, Sassafras, plum, Star Anise, nice Cab character but very primal.

10’ Camaspelo- Vanilla, Briar, Juicy Cherry, nice balance and length with moderate acidity.

10’ Cailloux Syrah- Wow nose, really pretty, floral, bacon, game, olive tapanade, rich, great acidity.

10’ En Chamberlin- More bacon than the Cailloux, plum, blood, iron, drying finish with hay, berry fruit and minerals.

10’ En cerise- More perfumed than all the Syrahs, game, meat, smoke, little oxidized underneath, plum, iron, blood and game.

10’ Bionic Frog- I liked the Chamberlin more, this was good, showed a lot of the same character as the rest of the syrahs, last years was better.

09’ Armada- Really nice, intense, bright, a nice surprise because I did not like this as much last year, I thought it was too oaked. This had a spice box of aromas and a palate length that would not stop, my wine of the weekend.



Dinner at White house Crawford was nice, the 05’ Leonetti Cab was good, the 00’ Belle Souers stole the show and the 99’ Ken Wright Canary hill was a couple of years from it’s plateau.

It was “Foothills in the Sun”, which is the vineyard right next to the winery. It was the first time they had poured this wine, as 2010 will be the first vintage of this bottling. All the other wine’s fruit comes from vineyards in The Rocks region (down by Cayuse). It was a really interesting wine to me. You could tell it was the same winemaking style, but different flavor profile and a different kind of “funk” from what I get from The Rocks.

I talked to Matt for a little while about the wine and was suprised he said it was only 3rd leaf vines it came from. Definately different than the others, much more green olive funkiness than I get with the other bottlings. I would expect that there will be some more bottlings to come around next vintage as they have some Cab Sauv and other vines growing by the tasting room. Great people and love following the wines as they evolve with more vintages and vine age going on. The Stonessence is a beast of a wine, one of our favorites.