Columbia Crest Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve - $49.99

Wine Details

Price: $49.99
Producer: Columbia Crest Winery
Region: Columbia Valley
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Container Size: 750 ML
Flavors: dark berries, mocha, nutty, oak, plum, spicy
  • Red Wine
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Product Description

  • "Ripe in flavor, with a vivid array of black currant, blackberry, violet, black tea and black pepper aromas and flavors that zoom through to a long, expressive finish. Shows subtlety in the layers of complex flavor against a refined structure. Tannins are present but nicely contained." — Wine Spectator, November 2008 "The intense fruit in this Cabernet Sauvignon does not deter from the aromatics of chocolate cherry and slight mint, which precede a palate of cocoa and black cherry flavors. This is an elegant, complex wine that culminates in the perfect balance of wood and fruit on the lingering finish." — Ray Einberger, Winemaker Growing Season: A hot, dry growing season created ideal flavor maturity and promoted an early harvest start. Cool temperatures and intermittent rain in mid-September prompted extended hang time, which allowed the grapes to reach ideal physiologic maturing. The 2004 harvest is characterized by smaller berry and cluster size, with intense flavors, good sugar development and high natural acidity. Vineyards: Cabernet Sauvignon grapes for the Reserve program were harvested from the top 10% of the vintages’s best vineyard sites. Vineyard sites are located on the Wahluke Slope, offering aromatics, texture and complexity; the Cold Creek area, which add flavor and fruitiness; and on the Horse Heaven Hills, which contribute balance and body to the finished wine. Cabernet Sauvignon has an affinity for the growing season’s warm daytime cooler evening temperatures. The balance between daytime and nighttime temperatures during the ripening period concentrated aromatics and enhanced complexity. The region’s low rainfall stressed the vines, yielding concentrated fruit with depth and varietal expression.
  • Columbia Crest is Northwest’s largest winery as well as Washington’s chief producer of premium wines from classic European grape varieties. Columbia Crest’s wines routinely receive acclaim from critics and consumers alike for their food-friendly, approachable style that captures the true expression of each grape variety across vintages. Columbia Crest winery is surrounded by 2,500 acres of prime estate vineyards in southeastern Washington’s Columbia Valley. It is from these vineyards that Columbia Crest receives its grapes for its Grand Estates wines. These wines further elevate the winery’s reputation for outstanding quality by showcasing the distinctive fruit intensity of the estate’s premier vineyard sites. This tier of wines is distinguished by their ripe varietals intensity. Lush yet vibrant, these wines offer a symmetry that is grown in the vineyards and produced in the cellars. Columbia Crest Reserve wines are created from the top 1 percent of the heritage vineyard yields for each variety. The wines are crafted in a separate area of our winery using artisan techniques for fermentation and barrel-aging. This approach has been termed “a winery within a winery” by winemaker Ray Einberger. The result is a small group of select, super-premium wines that get the kind of hands-on, special care you would expect in a boutique winery. The wines reward you with rich flavors, velvety textures, and a long finish – proving just how extraordinary Columbia Valley wines can be. As of 2008 the past five vintages from the Columbia Crest Reserve wine has received 90+ points from leading industry publications.

Expert Ratings

Ratings   Vintage Source Flavors
Tanzer - 87 Details: ($30) Good ruby-red. Dark berries, plum, mocha and nutty oak on the nose. Supple and fruity on entry, then a bit musclebound in the middle, with a strong element of spicy oak. There's good ripe, sweet fruit here but modest real depth. Finishes with dusty tannins. 2004 Tanzer dark berries, mocha, nutty, oak, plum, spicy
Tanzer - 87 Details: ($30) Good medium red. Roasted currant, chocolatey oak and coffee on the nose, with livelier raspberry and candied cherry notes emerging with aeration. Sweet and tactile on the palate, although the oak tones currently overshadow the wine's fresh cherry and plum fruit flavors. Finishes with fairly soft tannins and notes of chocolate and coffee. This wine showed better than the very oaky 2004 Chardonnay and the Merlot Reserve and Walter Clore Private Reserve bottlings. 2003 Tanzer candied, cherry, chocolate, chocolatey, coffee, currant, oak, plum, raspberry
CGCW - 89 Details: 7% Cabernet Franc. There is certain suggestion of Merlot in the sweet, mildly vanillin, cherry-like aromas of this amicable wine, and, while it shows an evident backbone of tannin, it hints once more at Merlot in its very smooth, raspberry and milk-chocolate flavors. It promises a bit of mid-term improvement but is wholly likeable now, and it comes with special recommendation to all looking for an attractive and fairly interesting wine that requires little patience. 2003 CGCW raspberry
WineSpectator - 93 Details: Ripe, polished, opulent style teems with spicy black cherry, raspberry, black olive, bay leaf and sweet spice flavors, which echo against the superfine tannins on the long, generous finish. Drink now through 2013. 4,000 cases made. –HS 2001 WineSpectator black cherry, raspberry, spice, spicy
Tanzer - 88(+?) Details: ($36) Bright medium ruby. Subdued but pure aromas of black plum, kirsch and leather, with slightly herbal suggestions of tobacco leaf and black olive adding nuance. Then full and primary in the mouth, with youthfully aggressive flavors of black- and redcurrant and licorice. Finishes with firm tannic backbone that calls for a couple years of patience. 2001 Tanzer herbal, kirsch, leather, licorice, plum, redcurrant, tobacco leaf
WineEnthusiast - 91 Details: This shows a remarkable Bordeaux like structure, with dry tannins, some well-balanced herbal/leaf elements, hints of tobacco and spice, and a lingering, complex finish. This really resonates with leafy cut tobacco aromas. 2001 WineEnthusiast blackberries, fresh herbs, tar
WineSpectator - 93 Details: Ripe in flavor, remarkably supple and lithe, letting the seductive black currant, cherry, plum and coffee notes sail impressively into a long and satisfying finish. It never gets heavy, but it's darned intense. Drink now through 2012. 1,000 cases made. –HS 2000 WineSpectator black currant, cherry, coffee, plum
Tanzer - 88 Details: ($30) Ruby-red. Nose dominated by nutty oak. Then sweet and pliant, with moderately complex flavors of cassis, cocoa powder, coffee and oak. In a rather gentle style, with good texture and ripe tannins. 2000 Tanzer cassis, coffee, nutty, oak
WineEnthusiast - 88 Details: Fat, open and forward, this is a very accessible wine, with friendly fruit, easy tannins, and plenty of coffee-flavored toasty new barrel. But the juice itself does not rise to the level of the previous reserves; beneath the broadly friendly flavors is a fairly light wine. 2000 WineEnthusiast
WineSpectator - 91 Details: Ripe, round and seductive, a plush mouthful of berry, plum, mocha and prune flavors, which echo elegantly on the fine-grained finish. Drink now through 2008. 1,500 cases made. –HS 1999 WineSpectator berry, mocha, plum, prune
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Food Pairings

Category Pairing
Cheese Blue Cheese, Provolone, Brie
Red Meat Roast Beef, Barbeque Pulled-Pork or Ribs, Veal Carpaccio, Game, Sausage, Variety Meats or Organ Meats, Kidney
Poultry & Eggs Game Birds
Vegetables Potatoes, Roasted Mixed Vegetables
Fish or Shellfish Sea Bass
Sauces Red Wine Sauce
Herbs & Spices Basil, Mint, Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme

Wine Terms

Name Value
Cabernet Sauvignon (cab er nay saw vee nyon)—This highly adaptable grape grows almost anywhere it is relatively warm, but the best wines come from the Burgundy region of France (where it is a noble variety), California, and Australia. It became famous through the red wines of the Médoc district of Bordeaux and is now grown in Washington, southern France, Italy, Australia, South Africa, Chile, and Argentina. Cabernet Sauvignon grapes make wines that are high in tannin and medium- to full-bodied. Usually identified as having black currant or cassis flavors, the grape can also possess vegetal tones when the grapes are less than ideally ripe. The best wines are rich and firm with great depth, and are often aged for fifteen years or more. Because it is highly tannic, Cabernet Sauvignon is often blended with other less-tannic grapes such as Merlot.
United States Wineries exist in all fifty states, but the most predominant (and best) wine comes from Northern California, Oregon, and Washington State, with New York gaining a foothold in the industry. American wines make up about 75% of all wine sales in the US. The appellation system uses the term AVA (American Viticultural Area) to determine where wines were produced, but grape varieties can be planted anywhere in the country. American wineries generally use varietal labeling, and government regulations require that the variety on the label must make up at least 75% of the blend (in Oregon it’s 90%). The words reserve, special selection, private reserve, classic, and so on have no legal definition in the US. Some wineries use these terms to indicate their better wines; others use the words as a marketing tool to move lower quality wines off the shelf.
Washington Most of the wineries in this state are located east of the Cascade Range, where the climate is desert-like, with hot days and cool nights. The irrigated vineyards produce high yield, but the flavor is nevertheless very good. Traditionally Rieslings have been the most successful here, but currently Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc are doing well. Chardonnay is successfully fermented in new oak barrels, yielding distinctively crisp and delicate flavors, like fresh apples. Washington Merlot, with its cherry flavors and aroma, tends to be more full-bodied, moderately tannic and slightly higher in alcohol than its Bordeaux cousins and higher in acidity than those from California. Acreage for the Syrah grape has increased substantially in the past few years, and in Washington it turns into big, dark, intensely concentrated wines with aromas and flavors of blackberries, black currants, roasted coffee and leather. A little-known German grape, Lemberger, does very well here. It produces a fruity but dry red wine in the Beaujolais or Dolcetto style.
Columbia Valley The Columbia Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA) is the largest in the state of Washington. It includes the Yakima Valley, Red Mountain, Walla Walla, and Horse Heaven Hill AVAs within its boundaries.

Tasting Notes

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