2001 Kiona Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve- USA, Washington, Columbia Valley, Red Mountain (4/13/2011)
Opaque maroon. The nose shows red currant, leather, tobacco and licorice with a bit of va. Despite the va, there is just a ton of complexity here. A full bodied, but old school styled wine. More red fruit than black, but the darker brooding elements are there. Earthy as well. The tannins have resolved a bit, but are still lingering. Good length. The va will put some off, but there is a good wine underneath.
From old vines of Red Mountain, not a producer that I honestly pay much attention to, but this bottling is awfully good.
I haven’t seen a mention of Scott’s wines in years. I was a big fan of older vintages when I moved here to WA. Remember the 1992 and 1994 were killer for their Cabs. I put their Merlot on wine lists in 5 states back in the day. He also was very good with the stickies of all sorts. Visited 2x in the late 1990s. Very nice guy as was his whole family, his father was still involved in running the place, although Scott made all the wines by that point. Thanks for the memories!
I find VA to be consistent in Kiona’s wines… this is a deal killer for me and I have learned to avoid. Too bad because thru the VA I can tell there is much to like.
Fielding Hills is another WA producer I have found consistently contains a VA-type profile to my palate. I’d be interested to know what the winemaker is doing to make it so consistent throughout their wines.
I haven’t seen it around for a while either. I had some from 1999 - early 2000s and burned thru them some time ago. I never found them to have intolerable VA, just a lot of tannins. But also typifying what I loved about WA wines - VERY reasonable prices for what you got.
Your post made me check my list because I haven’t thought about these guys for years. According to my database I have one bottle of 2001 for which I paid 18.39. Just spent 25 minutes looking for it and can’t find it or I’d drink it tonight and post a comparative note. If I find it over the weekend I’ll do so but I’m thinking it’s long gone - too bad because I had wanted to taste one of those with some time on.
However, for you guys out in WA - I did find some WA stuff I didn’t know I had like 1998 Andrake, which appears to be showing some seepage, 1998 Ruah, 1994 & 5 Col Solare, and in the same bin, a 1992 Teldeschi Dry Creek Zin - no idea how I even got that.
Anybody have any ideas on how those might be faring?
BTW - the note says 2001 Kiona but the bottle doesn’t.
CT pulls other images different from the note sometimes. No idea about the Zin, but the Andrake and the Ruah are probably showing nicely. It seems like bottles from the 90’s show very well. It was before everyone was chasing QC scores and the wines were made in a bit more ageworthy style.
If you have had the Col Solare in your own storage, it’s probably good. It seems like a lot of older bottles of that float around out there, and I’ve tasted mixed results, mainly lots of cooked bottles on the negative side. Looking forward to hearing how they show.
Just FYI- if you can locate a bottle of Apex Cab Franc, I think you would love it as much as you like Loire CF.
As to Col Solare, I used to buy it on release from the CSM Club each year since inception and stopped with the 2002. I had visions of doing a vertical as I knew these ex-cellars bottles were of perfect provenance. I opened one or two and found them just mediocre in quality. Even some fine vintages like 1998 and 1999 which were really solid here in WA, the Col Solare bottlings were rather disappointing. Considering what they used to charge for them, they were very low on the QPR quotient and I would never recoommend them to anyone. I don’t think I ever scored over 90 points and most were in the mid to upper 80s. That wouldn’t be bad, but they were over $50 in the early days and well above that when I stopped buying after 2002 vintage.