2010 Sonoris Merlot The Source

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Year Of The Deal (+Thanksgiving Closure UPDATE), 11/13/2018

  (Sonoris Merlot) Thanksgiving Closure UPDATE: Full Pull will be closed Thursday-Saturday Nov 22-24 to allow our team to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends. We will have normal open hours (Thu-Sat 11am-7pm) on the weekends before Thanksgiving (Nov 15-17) and after (Nov 29-Dec 1). Please plan accordingly. ---- Hello friends. Back in April, barely a quarter into 2018, I first christened this the year of the deal at Full Pull. And my oh my has that proven true. I’m not sure what it is: that we’ve reached a critical mass where the word is out about the volumes of wine our list gobbles up; that a number of wineries have gotten backed up on vintages all at once; that consolidation in the distribution/wholesale channel has left more wineries looking to do direct deals. Probably it’s some of all three. Whatever the cause, I can tell you that we’re inundated in a way we haven’t been before. Consistently we’re being presented with double-take pricing, always with an eye towards moving oceans of juice. That combination – getting quick/significant cash flow and getting caught up on vintages – is catnip to astute winemakers.Today’s astute winemaker is one Hillary Sjolund, a name known well to Washington wine insiders but perhaps less so to the public. Hillary is the day-to-day production winemaker at Wine Boss, Charlie Hoppes’ (of Fidelitas fame) custom crush facility. Wine Boss is quietly responsible for a number of excellent Washington brands, and therefore Hillary is one of the more quietly influential winemakers working in Washington. Check out this Great Northwest Wine story from 2016. It details the breadth of Wine Boss (then at 35,000 cases; now at more like 45,000 cases), and the depth of Hillary’s experience (which began at acclaimed Pine Ridge in Napa Valley). In addition to her work at Wine Boss, Hillary also launched her own brand, Sonoris, starting with the 2009 vintage. In a story that we see play out over and over in Washington (and probably every good winemaking region in the world), she shot out of the gate with significant quantities of wine and limited time to spend selling it all. I’m sure as her Wine Boss duties increased over the years, the thought of selling an underloved variety from an underappreciated vintage became less and less appealing. Which is what brings us to late 2018, and our ability to offer you folks a $30 right-bank blend for ten bucks. Yes, I said right-bank blend. While the label says Merlot, it has the bare minimum (75%) of that variety to allow Merlot to be printed, and the remaining 25% is Cabernet Franc. Perhaps no surprise, given Hillary’s connections: the vineyard material for this wine is outstanding. The Merlot comes entirely from Red Mountain: Corliss’ estate Red Mountain Vineyard combined with Red Heaven fruit. And the Cabernet Franc? All Champoux. Wowsah. Then 22 months in French oak, 60% new, which means this was bottled sometime in early 2013 and has now had another five-plus years to evolve and integrate in bottle. The wine clocks in at 14.9% listed alc (a good reminder that Red Mountain is plenty warm, even in a cool year like ’10) and blasts out of the glass aromatically. First you notice plenty of Merlot red fruit, both fresh (pomegranate) and dried (dried cherry, dried strawberry). Then complexities of cocoa powder and fresh mint. Finally maturing tertiaries of soy sauce and leathery spice. This is a wonderful maturing Merlot nose, full of charm and intrigue. The palate is lovely, still possessing plenty of primary fruit and acid pop (thank you cool vintage), paired to an insistent – and ribald – sense of earthiness. Red Mountain’s usually ferocious tannins have been smoothed into submission by the power of bottle age, now reduced to a subtle fine-grained chew, a final toothsome gift from a lovely, perfectly mature Washington Merlot that has no business being ten dollars.