2011 Beresan Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Walla Walla Valley

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Walla Walla Cabernet Deal, 4/22/2018

  (Beresan Cabernet Sauvignon) Hello friends. We have excellent pricing today (down from a release price of $35) on a wine whose previous vintages have been well-loved by our list-members: a Walla Walla Valley Cabernet Sauvignon now seven years past vintage and drinking beautifully: This one is going to be popular. I know there’s deep affection for this wine, ever since we first offered a Beresan Cab on November 11, 2011 (yes, 11/11/11). That was the 2006 vintage, and you might remember we offered it in conjunction with a Paul Gregutt blog where he tasted a six-year vertical of Beresan Cabs. What was fascinating about that blog entry was that PaulG published his scores from when he had initially reviewed the wines for Enthusiast, and then revised scores based on how the wine was drinking at the vertical tasting. One wine went down a point (the 2005 vintage, from 92pts to 91pts); all the others increased, by anywhere from one point to a whopping eight points. The conclusions I think many of us drew from the exercise: first, as PaulG himself said in that post, “Beresan makes my short list of the most important, consistent, stylistically riveting small wineries in Washington. It is also among the state’s best value plays…”; and second, that Beresan’s Cabernets generally improve mightily with age. Beresan really is one of the gems of the Walla Walla Valley, and it starts with their outstanding estate vineyards. This Cabernet is 60%/40% Yellow Jacket and Waliser Vineyards. Both of these estate sites are in the rocks; both are farmed by Tom Waliser (one of the valley’s finest growers). Waliser Vineyard was planted in 1997, Yellow Jacket in 1999. That is early days as far as the rocks are concerned. As the folks at Beresan note, “The vineyards are planted on old cobblestone riverbed soils, providing the wine with unique and distinct earthy minerality qualities.” That beautiful rocks Cabernet fruit was brought to bottle by Tom Glase, who makes Beresan wines in addition to his own Balboa wines (in fact, as of last spring, the wineries merged into one entity). It spent about two years in barrel (all French, 30% new), and now has another four-plus years of bottle age. Perfect. I continue to believe that well-made cool-vintage 2010s and 2011s are going to age like another cool vintage in Washington: 1999. Many ‘99s are drinking beautifully right now, and I think we can expect a similarly positive 15-20 year evolution for well-made ‘11s. This clocks in at 14.6% listed alc and begins with a nose of redcurrant and red plum fruit mixed with loads of dusty earthy notes and overlain with eucalyptus top-notes. The cool vintage makes itself felt in this wine’s sturdy acid spine, and the vineyards also shine through with their signature minerality and fruit intensity. This is among the more palate-staining ‘11s I can remember, with fruit impact to spare. It’s complex and evolving beautifully, the true-to-Cabernet tannins (redolent of cherry tea) in the process of being sanded down to a fine grain by the power of extra bottle age. This very much drinks like a wine with years left in the tank, but it’s pretty damned seductive right this very second. Please limit order requests to 24 bottles, and we’ll do our best to fulfill all requests. The wine should arrive in the next two or three weeks, at which point it will be ready for pickup or shipping during the next temperature-appropriate shipping window. Regards, Team Full Pull® Paul Zitarelli, Editor in Chief Nick Peyton, Tasting Bar Manager Pat Malloy, Director of Operations Dennis Felipe, Warehouse Manager Dylan Joffe, Staff Writer Sam Barton, Tasting Room Associate Emme Brown, Tasting Room/Special Projects Manager