2014 Avennia Valery

JamesSuckling.com

• By James Suckling
  3/16/2018, (See more on JamesSuckling.com...)

  (Avennia Columbia Valley Valery, Red, United States) Login and sign up and see review text.

• By Stephen Tanzer
  Focus on Washington: Hot Times in the Desert (Nov 2016), 11/1/2016, (See more on Vinous...)

  (Avennia Red Wine Valery Washington) Login and sign up and see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Spring Release Season, 2/22/2017

  (Avennia Valery) Hello friends. Nothing gets the heart racing quite like spring release season (I know, I know; mentioning spring in February is optimistic here in Seattle, but every bit of silver lining helps). This period, which runs from now through May, contains some of the most beautiful northwest wines released each year. Beautiful and scarce. This is the season of allocated wines, which means it’s as good a time as any to review our allocation policy: Our allocations favor breadth over depth, so that everyone gets one bottle before anyone gets two. And our formula for prioritizing allocations includes overall orders, frequency of orders, recency of orders, and list tenure, among other factors. Always among the earliest wineries to kick things off is Avennia, a winery that launched with loads of buzz and whose star has only continued to rise. You may remember some of the praise during their initial set of releases back in 2012: From Stephen Tanzer (Tanzer’s IWC): This was the best set of new wines I tasted in Washington in July, but given their pedigree this should not come as a surprise. Then from David Schildknecht (Wine Advocate): …one ought to sign up for some [Avennia wine] immediately if they have not all already been spoken for, because this is one auspicious debut! Soon after, I had the chance to write about Avennia for my Seattle Magazine gig, and since they’ve launched, we’ve offered the vast majority of Avennia wines presented to us. Chris Peterson’s winemaking is deeply compelling. The house style retains the character of Washington’s terroir and yet presents this sense of ribald, euro-styled earthiness that is a bit more unusual in these climes. These are beautiful, ageworthy wines, year in and year out. It is amazing to me that this is only vintage five of Gravura and Sestina. Very quickly these wines have come to feel they’ve been around forever. Very quickly they’ve become indispensable. Valery is among Avennia’s most limited wines, at just 240 cases produced, and it’s the least likely to be available for reorder. It’s now or never. The story behind Valery is that Chris Peterson was looking to make an earthy, rocky, Saint Emilion ringer, and when Dick Boushey offered a block of 1986-planted Merlot on a soil base that is essentially a large Yakima Valley rock-pile, he pounced. That fruit comprises 60% of this blend, the remainder Champoux Cab Franc (itself now 20 years old). It gets 20 months in French oak, 30% new. This vintage has a significantly higher proportion of Cab Franc than last year, and it shows in the aromatics, adding floral and dried-chile notes to a core of Merlot’s stony black cherry fruit. The palate is a rich, intense, palate-staining mix of rocks and fruit, all framed by serious Merlot tannin structure, redolent of high-cacao chocolate and strong brewed coffee. It’s a deeply satisfying bottle, a classy example of Washington’s strength with these right-bank blends.