2016 Kevin White Winery La Fraternité

JamesSuckling.com

• By James Suckling
  4/26/2019, (See more on JamesSuckling.com...)

  (Kevin White Winery Yakima Valley La Fraternité, Red, United States) Login and sign up and see review text.

• By Stephen Tanzer
  Focus on Washington: The New Normal (Nov 2018), 11/1/2018, (See more on Vinous...)

  (Kevin White Winery Red Wine La Fraternité Washington Red) Login and sign up and see review text.

Full Pull

• By Paul Zitarelli
  Full Pull Dialed In, 9/5/2018

  (Kevin White Winery La Fraternite) Hello friends. At what point does a rising star winemaker drop the ‘rising’ portion and just become an established superstar? For my view of Kevin White, I can pinpoint the exact moment: it was on August 9 at 11:22am, when I took my first sniff of Kevin’s 2016 Rhone blend, La Fraternite. My goodness. I mean, this guy has been knocking it out of the park for years now. Check out this string of accolades from Seattle Magazine’s annual wine awards issues: Winemaker to Watch in 2015, Best Red Blend $20-$40 in 2016, Best Rhone Blend, $25 and under in 2017, Best Emerging Winery in 2018. And that has been during the string of hot-hotter-hottest vintages (2013-2015) that didn’t perfectly suit his house style. Now, with the 2016, he has a vintage that works, he’s seven vintages into his winery, and he is just killing it. I get the sense that Kevin is really dialed in right now. He knows the style of wines he wants to make, and he has the vineyard partners to make it happen. The result, at least for this pair of ‘16s, is something really special. I should also mention: Kevin’s pricing remains ridiculous, with these wines competing with bottles at twice the tag. Kevin seems determined to offer exceptional value as he builds his brand, and I’m really pleased that our list members can continue to be the recipients of his efforts in that direction. A few logistics notes. First, we’re likely to only get one shot at these. They’re small production, and they always move fast. If possible, I’ll over-buy so that we have some availability for reorder, but I’d say the odds of that are less than 50/50. Second, reviews of these wines are always positive, but they also always come well after release, and I’m not taking any chances on waiting. The backbone here is Upland Vineyard Grenache (64%), a site with a proven track record of producing some of the best Grenache in the state. The remainder is Mourvedre (27%) and Syrah (9%) from Boushey and Sugarloaf Vineyards. Aged in neutral French oak for about a year, this clocks in at 14.8% listed alc. On first sniff, it just comes rocketing out of the glass with super-expressive, practically joyful aromatics: strawberries and raspberries, blossoms galore, and a pronounced, attractive minerality. What is exceptional about this wine is its purity. The fruit is crystalline, the texture sculpted and polished. There’s not an awkward knee or elbow to be found. That kind of textural seamlessness paired to the fruit-flower-mineral complexity of a good Rhone blend; my goodness is that a pleasurable drinking experience. It had me in mind of slow-simmered white beans, studded with pork and greens. Autumn on the ascendancy. No reviews yet for the ’16, but it’s worth noting that the ’15 earned a 93pt review from Sean Sullivan in Wine Enthusiast (of course, several months after our initial offer last year). Context note: of the 30 Washington Rhone reds Sean reviewed from the 2015 vintage, only one scored better, and that was *another* Kevin White wine: the 2015 Pionnier at 94pts. For my palate anyhow, the ’16 is a superior vintage. We shall see…