JancisRobinson.com

• By Elaine Chukan Brown
  7/13/2022 (link)

  (L'Ecole No 41, Ferguson Vineyard Walla Walla Valley Red) Subscribe to see review text.

Vinous

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

  (L’ecole No. 41 Red Wine Estate Ferguson Vineyard Washington Red) Subscribe to see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Something Old, Something New, Something Both, 11/16/2017

  (L'Ecole No. 41 Estate Ferguson Vineyard) Hello friends. I love writing about L’Ecole No. 41. Not only because they’re Washington stalwarts who have been doing it – and doing it well – for a very long time, but also because they offer a roadmap for how Washington wineries can mature and evolve and maintain relevance. I feel like Marty Clubb and his team nail a few important principles: 1. It all starts with the land. Focus on estate vineyards. 2. Stay loyal to the vineyards and wines that brought your initial success, but don’t be afraid to expand and innovate. 3. Quality will out. Trust your own assessment of quality more than the whims of fashion, and that good enough wines will always find a market. Today we’re offering a trio of wines that encapsulate these principles; one from an old estate vineyard, one from a new estate vineyard, and one wine that combines the two. Originally offered May 14, 2017, and I cannot believe we have access to another parcel of this. It’s completely sold out at the winery, but some schmohawk refused an allocation someplace in the country, the wine ended up back in western Washington, and we were offered dibs on the parcel due to our list’s long support of this wine. Here are some excerpts from the original: The inaugural 2011 vintage was named best Bordeaux Blend in the world at the 2014 Decanter World Wine Awards in London. That’s a competition with 15,000 bottles and exactly 33 awards. Then the 2013 took home New World Bordeaux blend in the Six Nations Wine Challenge, held each year in Australia. The source of this award-winning juice is Ferguson Vineyard, planted high up in the Walla Walla Valley, at about 1400’ elevation, on a soil base that only goes about two feet deep before hitting a bed of fractured basalt. Here’s a brilliant video introducing the site. Ferguson is Walla Walla Valley 2.0. It’s the founders of the wine scene in the valley using all their accumulated knowledge to select the right site and plant it to the right varieties and right clones. It’s proof, at least to this wine writer, that the age of experimentation in Washington is coming to an end, to be replaced, I hope, by an era with even more smart, proactively-selected, carefully-planted vineyards. It’s an indication that the future is bright indeed. The blend in 2014 is 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 6% Malbec, and the juice was aged in French oak, 50% new, for 22 months before bottling in July 2016. It clocks in at 14.5% listed alc and begins with a nose betraying its origins: loads of flinty and ferrous minerality complementing a core of black cherry and black plum fruit, all overlain with lovely floral topnotes. The palate resembles good young left-bank Bordeaux; it’s all potential, with the fruit currently hidden behind imposing walls of structure: vibrant acidity and robust, serious tannin. This is sculptural wine, seemingly built to stand the rigors of time. Ferguson is one of the most important Washington debutantes of the past few years, and it’s still priced well below Washington’s cult wines (not to mention good Pauillac). Wine Advocate: Copyrighted material withheld.

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Ferguson, 5/14/2017

  (L'Ecole No. 41 Estate Ferguson Vineyard) Hello friends. The good news: for the second year in a row, we have access to a Washington wine that is making serious waves in the global wine market. The bad news: our parcel size is down 30%. Originally offered May 14, 2017, and I cannot believe we have access to another parcel of this. It’s completely sold out at the winery, but some schmohawk refused an allocation someplace in the country, the wine ended up back in western Washington, and we were offered dibs on the parcel due to our list’s long support of this wine. Here are some excerpts from the original: The inaugural 2011 vintage was named best Bordeaux Blend in the world at the 2014 Decanter World Wine Awards in London. That’s a competition with 15,000 bottles and exactly 33 awards. Then the 2013 took home New World Bordeaux blend in the Six Nations Wine Challenge, held each year in Australia. The source of this award-winning juice is Ferguson Vineyard, planted high up in the Walla Walla Valley, at about 1400’ elevation, on a soil base that only goes about two feet deep before hitting a bed of fractured basalt. Here’s a brilliant video introducing the site. Ferguson is Walla Walla Valley 2.0. It’s the founders of the wine scene in the valley using all their accumulated knowledge to select the right site and plant it to the right varieties and right clones. It’s proof, at least to this wine writer, that the age of experimentation in Washington is coming to an end, to be replaced, I hope, by an era with even more smart, proactively-selected, carefully-planted vineyards. It’s an indication that the future is bright indeed. The blend in 2014 is 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 6% Malbec, and the juice was aged in French oak, 50% new, for 22 months before bottling in July 2016. It clocks in at 14.5% listed alc and begins with a nose betraying its origins: loads of flinty and ferrous minerality complementing a core of black cherry and black plum fruit, all overlain with lovely floral topnotes. The palate resembles good young left-bank Bordeaux; it’s all potential, with the fruit currently hidden behind imposing walls of structure: vibrant acidity and robust, serious tannin. This is sculptural wine, seemingly built to stand the rigors of time. Ferguson is one of the most important Washington debutantes of the past few years, and it’s still priced well below Washington’s cult wines (not to mention good Pauillac). Wine Advocate: Copyrighted material withheld.