2005 Washington Cabernet Blind Tasting

Tasted Saturday, April 4, 2009 by last chance with 470 views

Introduction

A group of us got together to blind taste some 05 WA Cabs.

Flight 1 - Starter whites (2 Notes)

A couple Rieslings to get us started.

  • 2007 Selbach-Oster Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 91 Points

    Germany, Mosel Saar Ruwer

    The nose had citrus and tropical fruit aromas. The palate packed in peach, tropical fruits, and apple flavors with some notes of minerals. Nice mouthfeel, a fairly long finish. The acidity was just enough to keep the sweetness in balance. Paired really well with Dungeness crabcakes.

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  • 2007 Smith-Madrone Riesling 90 Points

    USA, California, Napa Valley, Spring Mountain District

    The nose of this wine had lots of citrus aromas and a bit of stone fruits as well. The palate was consistent with the nose, and the acidity in this wine was very nice. I think this is more in line with a Kabinett level of German Riesling. Tasted this next to a Selbach Oster 07 Spatlese, and the Selbach Oster seemed very sweet in comparison to the Smith Madrone.

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Flight 2 - The 2005 WA Cabs (7 Notes)

Since 05 was such a great vintage in WA, this was a great way to get an early look at a lot of Cabs.

  • 2005 Andrew Will Sorella 94 Points

    USA, Washington, Columbia Valley, Horse Heaven Hills

    Tasted blind as part of an 05 WA Cab tasting. The nose had blueberry and vanilla with a floral note. The palate had flavors of blue/red berries, and vanilla. With some time in the glass, the red fruit notes came forward, and the vanilla faded away. This had a wonderful mouthfeel, and a nice long finish. My guess for this wine was Quilceda Creek. Wrong yet again. However, this was a real eye opener for me, and was my WOTN. A definite indication that I need to pay more attention to the releases of Sorella.

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  • 2005 Betz Family Cabernet Sauvignon Père de Famille 94 Points

    USA, Washington, Columbia Valley

    Tasted blind as part of an 05 WA Cab tasting. The nose had black cherry aromas, and some smoky oak. The palate had nice dark fruit and roasted meat flavors. This wine had a great mouthfeel, a long finish, and the best balance of all the wines that were in this tasting. My second favorite of the 7 wines we tasted. I liked the 05 Andrew Will Sorella just slightly more.

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  • 2005 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Galitzine Vineyard 94 Points

    USA, Washington, Columbia Valley, Red Mountain

    Tasted blind as part of an 05 WA Cabernet tasting. The nose had cherry and vanilla aromas. The palate had currant, cherry, earth and some spice notes. With some time in the glass, a nice roasted flavor started coming forward. My guess was that this was from Walla Walla, and possibly a Cayuse Widowmaker. I was way wrong.

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  • 2005 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 93 Points

    USA, Washington, Columbia Valley

    Tasted blind as part of an 05 WA Cab tasting. The nose had blueberry and vanilla aromas. The palate had dark cherry and blackberry flavors. This wine picked up a scorched earth note with some time in the glass that I enjoyed. My first thought was QC Galitzine, but I ended up going with Betz PdF as my guess because the scorched earth note reminded me of some of Betz's wines that had Boushey fruit in them. Wrong again.

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  • 2005 Leonetti Cellar Cabernet Sauvignon Walla Walla Valley 90 Points

    USA, Washington, Columbia Valley, Walla Walla Valley

    Tasted blind as part of an 05 WA Cab tasting. At first the nose had stemmy and green aromas. I wondered if this was a ringer with Cab Franc in it. The nose eventually revealed currant and oak flavors, but the green note was still there. The palate had berry and oak flavors with a green pepper note gaining in intensity through the medium-long finish. I didn't have a guess for this wine other than it was a ringer, but I was very surprised to find out this was a Leonetti Cab.

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  • 2005 Ross Andrew Winery Cabernet Sauvignon 90 Points

    USA, Washington, Columbia Valley

    Tasted blind as part of an 05 WA Cabernet tasting. The nose had currant and plum aromas. There was also some heat that was evident. The palate was consistent with the nose, with the currant gaining intensity through the medium-long finish. No heat was evident on the finish.

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  • 2005 Ross Andrew Winery Red Table Wine 89 Points

    USA, Washington, Columbia Valley

    Tasted blind as part of an 05 WA Cabernet tasting. The nose was not very expressive. Seemed fairly flat for about an hour after opening. The palate had red fruit and coffee flavors. It did open up a bit more with some time in the glass, but wasn't very complex. This did have a very smooth mouthfeel, but it showed some heat on the finish, and the acidity seemed a bit too high. This was a ringer in the 05 WA Cab tasting, and I have no doubt that it didn't show as well in part because of the great WA Cabs we tasted this next too. Still, not my favorite from Ross.

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Closing

Hope to do this again in the future with more 05 WA Cabs!

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