Vinous

• By Stephen Tanzer
  New Releases from Washington: A Bonanza for Consumers (Dec 2019), 12/1/2019 (link)

  (Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Washington Red) Subscribe to see review text.

JamesSuckling.com

• By James Suckling
  4/21/2019 (link)

  (Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley, Red, United States) Subscribe to see review text.

JebDunnuck.com

• By Jeb Dunnuck
  The 2016s From Washington State, 4/11/2019 (link)

  (Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Colombia Valley Red) Subscribe to see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Quilceda Creek, 4/5/2019

  (Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley) Hello friends. We received a wonderful surprise on Tuesday when the folks at Quilceda Creek reached out to let us know that we will have access to the spring release of arguably the most decorated bottling in Washington wine history: You may recall that last autumn, we were able to secure a small amount of the 2015 vintage, due to Chinese retaliatory tariffs suppressing demand for American wine in China. It was a wacky reason, to be sure, but it was a foot in the door. And this year, we get to access Quilceda’s flagship wine right upon release. The only catch: we need to send our request to the winery on Monday. Hence the quick turnaround (from learning about our allocation on Tuesday to sending out an offer on Friday), and hence my request to y’all to send us your order requests by Sunday night. [For planning/budgeting purposes, here is a quick update on Leonetti, since we haven’t been able to send those allocation notices yet: Cab looks good for full allocations; Merlot looks good for partial allocations; Reserve looks… awful. No one is going to get more than a single bottle of Reserve, and right now, it looks like 80% of the folks who ordered Reserve will be shut out entirely. Hopefully access to Quilceda Cab is a fine salve!] Now then, when I describe this wine as perhaps the most decorated in Washington history, here’s what I mean: Perfect 100pt reviews from Wine Advocate for the 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2014 vintages; 98pt or 99pt Advocate reviews for the 1999, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013 vintages; the #2 spot in Wine Spectator’s 2015 Top 100 list for the 2012 vintage. No reviews yet for the ’16, but we all know where this is going, don’t we? And by the time the reviews come out, this wine is typically long-since-sold-out. For newer list members, here is a quick primer on the history of this special Washington winery. The story begins with Andre Tchelistcheff. By the time Tchelistcheff arrived in the Napa Valley in 1938 (to take the winemaking job at George de Latour’s Beaulieu Vineyards), he had already seen an eventful 37 years. Born in 1901 to a father who was the Chief Justice of the Russian Imperial Court, Tchelistcheff’s life changed dramatically with the Russian Revolution of 1917, after which he fought for three years in Russia’s Civil War. He was wounded on the battlefield, eventually recovered and rejoined his family, and then fled with them to Yugoslavia, and then onto Czechoslovakia and finally France, where he took up the study of oenology at the Institut National Agronomique. That’s where George de Latour found Tchelistcheff, and their meeting led to a 35-year partnership. It’s difficult to overstate Tchelistcheff’s impact on American winemaking. A smattering of the techniques he helped to introduce: Cold fermentation. Malolactic conversion. Frost protection in vineyards. Ageing wine in small oak barrels. Basically, if there’s a winemaking technique that modern vintners take for granted, chances are Tchelistcheff helped to introduce it in the United States. His fingerprints are all over California wine, and by the 1960s, he was doing consulting work in the Pacific Northwest as well. When Ste Michelle launched in 1967, it was under Tchelistcheff’s guidance. He also had a nephew, living north of Seattle, and he encouraged his relative to try his hand at Cabernet Sauvignon. That nephew was Alex Golitzin, who proceeded to produce about one barrel of Cabernet per year from 1974 through 1978. The results were encouraging enough that, in 1979, Golitzin launched Quilceda Creek Vintners as a commercial winery, producing 150 cases of Cabernet Sauvignon. Since then, the production has increased, but the winery’s focus on Cabernet Sauvignon has never wavered, even as the next generation (Alex’s son Paul Golitzin) has taken over as Director of Winemaking. What a wonderful American story. And how lucky we are to have access to one of Washington’s crown jewels.