JamesSuckling.com

• By James Suckling
  3/16/2018 (link)

  (Cadence Red Mountain Ciel Du Cheval Vineyard, Red, United States) Subscribe to see review text.

Vinous

• By Stephen Tanzer
  Washington: Various Shades of Hot (Oct 2017), 10/1/2017 (link)

  (Cadence Winery Red Wine Ciel Du Cheval Vineyard Washington Red) Subscribe to see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull First Call Last Call, 2/5/2018

  (Cadence Ciel du Cheval Vineyard) Hello friends. In an industry where trends ebb and flow, vintage conditions affect available grapes, and staff changes can mean reinvention, it can be hard for wineries to nail down a house style. Even though a well-executed house style is integral to success in this business, there are hundreds of reasons why a winery might find themselves without a consistent vision. In our corner of the world, a house style sets wineries apart in a sea of stand-out Washington wines; it allows consumers to purchase wine with confidence, knowing exactly what to expect from a bottle they haven’t tasted. Ben Smith has mastered the art of a house style with Cadence, creating a vineyard-focused bordeaux lineup that is consistent year in and year out. His house style focuses on three components: textural elegance, carefully-tended structure, and finely-tuned balance. This style allows Cadence to hyper focus on creating high-quality, delightfully ageable wines from three vineyards on Red Mountain. Today we’re offering wines from two of those vineyards—Ciel du Cheval and Tapteil. The winery has given us a heads-up that it’s already last-call time for these two; there will most likely be no reorder potential for either of these bottles.Wine Advocate: Copyrighted material withheld. Originally offered February 5, 2018. Excerpts from the original: Ciel du Cheval needs no introduction to our list members. Located in the heart of Red Mountain, Ciel has nearly 40 vintages under its belt. Wines from this vineyard are consistently terrific: intensely charactered and elegantly supple. The ‘14 Ciel represents the vineyard well—poised and bright, with an overarching energy that cuts through the powerful, dense fruit. On the nose, it opens with a lovely and complex mixture of black fruit, dried flower stems, mineral, and spice—and gives way to a structured, belly-warming wine. There is lush Red Mountain fruit here, but there is so much more than just fruit, like savory earth and baking spice. This wine is beautiful, and should develop gracefully over the years to come. Ben himself said, “Gorgeous now but the upside potential should be measured in decades, not merely years.”