Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Power, 1/8/2017

  (Powers Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Champoux Vineyard) Hello friends, and happy new year! I hope you all had a festive, restful, rejuvenating couple of weeks. As usual, I thoroughly enjoyed a little time away from the e-mail machine, but as the calendar ticked over from December to January, I began to get the itch. The itch that can only be scratched by writing about wine; by trying to figure out what is new and interesting (or classic and outstanding) and bringing it to our list members. So I’m happy to be welcomed back into your inboxes, and for our first offer of the year, I want to expand on a category that we debuted in 2016: the 3L bag-in-box. We offered two of them in 2016: both rosés, both imports. I was thrilled with our list’s response to each offer, because I am a big proponent of this format. It keeps the wine fresh for three weeks after opening. It’s also waaaaaay light-weight compared to glass bottles, which makes it more portable and more environmentally-friendly. I see this packaging facing some of the same challenges screwcaps did a decade ago – perception that the wine inside is cheap and/or awful – and I suspect it will eventually overcome that in much the way screwcaps subsequently have. The positives are just way too positive. What’s exciting to me about today’s offer is that it comes not from some progressive European nation, but right from our own backyard, from a terrific Washington winery we’ve worked with on numerous occasions: Powers. Before we get into our two box wines, please note: we’ll also have a last-call reoffer below on a well-priced 2012 Powers Champoux Cab. Originally offered January 11, 2016, it was our third offer of the year last year and a popular reorder target thereafter. Now the winery is getting low on stock, and has offered us one more chance to access this beauty. Excerpts from the original: Four Washington wineries have ownership stakes in Champoux Vineyard, undeniably one of Washington’s cru Cabernet sites, in the heart of the Horse Heaven Hills. Those four wineries naturally have access to the filet of the vineyard. Quilceda Creek’s Cabernet Sauvignon ($140) and Woodward Canyon’s Old Vines Cabernet Sauvignon ($110) both contain a backbone of Champoux Cab. Andrew Will’s Sorella ($83) comes entirely from Block One Champoux fruit. Today’s wine comes from the fourth partner: Powers. Powers is now in its second generation, with Greg Powers taking over the main winemaking role from his father Bill. Greg was in his late teens when he helped his dad plant their 80-acre family estate, Badger Mountain Vineyard. They were visionaries when it came to organic viticulture, becoming the first Certified Organic vineyard in Washington State in 1990, waaaaay before the notion of organics was trendy. In 1992 they launched Powers Winery, and in 1996 they formed the partnership that purchased Champoux (then called Mercer Ranch). They’ve been working with Champoux fruit for more than two decades, and it shows. This particular bottling is 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, rounded out with 5% each Merlot and Petit Verdot. It spent 30 months in French oak, 75% new, and clocks in at 14% listed alc. The fruit source, the classy barrels, the length of time in oak: all suggest a Cabernet that could command a considerably higher price. That it comes from perhaps the best Washington vintage of the new millennium is the capstone. This offers an unmistakable Champoux nose, its wonderful graphitic minerality weaving through blackcurrant fruit and smoke and cedar. The balance is pinpoint, with just-right acidity and tannin structure to frame a core of delicious, mineral-tinged black fruit. There’s even a light note of black olive to ramp up the complexity a little further. After a plush mid-palate, this moves into a serious, grippy, toothsome finish, very true to Cabernet in texture. This is classy, classy juice, punching well above its price class, and it is a textbook introduction to an important Washington vineyard.