Country: | United States |
Regions: | Washington Washington (Walla Walla) |
Winery: | Abeja |
Grape Type: | Cabernet Sauvignon |
Vintage: | 2012 |
Bottle Size: | 750 ml |
Lady Hill Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley is made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Intense hues range from wine purple to sangria showcasing Cabernet Sauvignon’s genetic predisposition to tiny berries packed with color making molecules called anthocyanidins. Chocolate covered cherry and subtle blackberry liqueur combine New World fruit flavors with savory olive tapenade, dried herb de provence and a tinge of minerality found in ancient volcanic soils. The subtle wood impact of 10% new and once filled barrels keeps the focus on fruit and spice, while maintaining the characteristic dusty tannins and lingering finish that Cabernet Sauvignon has become famous for.
Pair with pan roasted veal chops, grilled veggie pizza or a can of Cougar Gold Cheddar.
DuMOL Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 100 percent Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Our 2016 Napa Valley Cabernet is a classically built wine typical of this wonderful Napa vintage: deep fruit, enveloping texture, mineral freshness and long supple structure. It’s a harmonious interweaving of four distinct vineyards that intricately balances power and finesse.
With its exceptional farming and rocky volcanic soil, Meteor Vineyard is one of the finest sites in Coombsville. Its fruit dominates the blend and ensures both intensity and delicacy, with soaring aromatics followed by succulent dark fruit.
True Dog Knoll serves as a new focal point in this vintage, its world-renowned west Oakville deep gravel soils bringing deep texture and mineral focus.
Layering in a small amount of Petit Verdot from our Roach Estate in St. Helena provides an element of blue fruit and refinement that balances beautifully with the darker brooding power of Ballard Vineyard’s mountaintop muscle and structure.
With its harmonious layers and textures, this wine reminds me of the 2012 Napa Valley vintage. Dark, inky and opaque, it presents aromas of plum, violets and graphite. Beautiful fruit cascades almost immediately to more savory flavors: crushed rock dustiness, cocoa and cedar. A good, firm mineral spine runs through to the long, bittersweet finish. Ever-evolving in the glass, this wine is poised now and will age beautifully over the next 10+ years.
Review:
A ripe, friendly style, with a creamy-textured core of cassis and cherry preserve flavors underscored by anise and apple wood notes that stay nicely
melded with the fruit on the finish. There’s a lingering cast iron note keeping this grounded.
-Wine Spectator 93 Points
Cardinale Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot.
Super structured and with minerality to spare, this Cabernet Sauvignon offers a real presence on the palate from start to finish. Generous notes of dark chocolate balance beautifully with a blue and black fruit flavor explosion, finishing with a subtle whisper of rose petal.
Reviews:
- James Suckling 98 Points
Dunn Vineyards Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 100 percent Cabernet.
This Napa Valley wine is a blend of their Howell Mountain fruit and a small quantity of valley floor fruit that they purchase. This valley floor fruit contributes to the wine’s earlier approachability and softer tannic structure.
Review:
“The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley) is a powerful, tannic wine. In some vintages, the Napa Valley bottling is quite accessible, but not here. Swaths of tannin wrap around a core of dark fruit, gravel, spice, dried flowers, lavender and charred earth are pushed forward, with firm, chocolatey tannins that wrap it all together. The 2019 is a bruiser, that is for sure.”
-Vinous 93+Points
Far Niente Estate Bottled Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot, 1% Cabernet Franc .
An elegant perfume of mixed berries, baking spice, dried lavender and thyme open onto a full palate layered with expansive mixed berry, black tea, toasted oak and spice flavors. Focused and fresh, fine grained tannins support the wine throughout, while the finish is silky, long and lifted.
The wine combines select vineyards in Rutherford, Calistoga and St. Helena that complement our home in Oakville and embody our long-established house style. Cabernet has been a hallmark of Far Niente’s winemaking program beginning with its very first vintage in 1982. The marriage of these diverse vineyard sites has allowed us to craft our finest expression of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine exemplifies our nearly four decades of mastery in growing and making Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
Review:
With a slight nose of reduction, this wine offers grippy tannin and sizable oak. Blueberry, currant, cedar and sage give it an elegance and classic structure of understated power, finishing in notes of tobacco and clove. Enjoy from 2029–2039. Cellar Selection
-Wine Enthusiast 96 Points
Far Niente Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 88% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6.5% Merlot, 2.5% Malbec, 2.5% Petit Verdot, 0.5% Cabernet Franc.
Beautiful aromas of dark plum, red cherry, licorice and warm baking spices open onto a plush and silky palate layered with plum, spiced cherry and cassis. A classic Napa Valley Cabernet, fine-grained tannins and lively acidity support the wine throughout, while the finish is refined and polished.
Review:
Very precisely polished and focused wine with aromas of black cherries, blue berries and violets followed by green bell pepper, black ink and gravel. Underlying umami notes, too. Full-bodied, firm yet finely grained juicy tannins with bright acidity that balances out the palate. Beautifully integrated toasty notes and baking spices on the mid-palate and in the finish. Flourishing and artful wine that will age gracefully.
-James Suckling 96 Points
Abeja Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley 2012 is made from 96% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Merlot.
Aged for 20 months in 100% French, medium toast; 60% new, 40% one & two year old
The nose leads off with plum, bright blackberry, and dark bing cherries. A touch of dried blueberry rounds out the fruit proï¬le. Floral notes and cocoa, with nuances of cedar and spice, are sprinkled throughout. All of these characters follow through on the palate and, with a pleasant minerality and continuity, weave a tapestry of complexity and youthful exuberance.
This wine is pulled from vineyards across the Columbia Valley, including Heather Hill, Bacchus, Dionysus, Ciel du Cheval and Destiny Ridge. A nuanced wine, it shows winemaker John Abbott in top form with its rich, layered fruit flavors, dazzling sense of texture and lengthy finish. It’s drinking beautifully but promises to have a long life in front of it in the cellar. 93 Points Wine Enthusiast
"60% new French oak; a blend from multiple vineyard sources. Bright ruby-red. Complex aromas of blueberry, blackberry, bitter chocolate, leather, licorice and violet reminded me a bit of top Mendoza Malbec. Suave and seamless in the mouth, with insinuating dark berry, licorice and spice flavors filling the mouth without showing any heaviness. Finishes dry and long, with fully integrated tannins. This fine-grained Cabernet is deceptively approachable now but should age gracefully. - Stephen Tanzer" - Vinous (November 2015), 92 pts
The Abeja Winery
The Abeja Winery sits at the base of the Washington Blue Mountains, just east of Walla Walla, on a farm estate over 100 years old.
Ken and Ginger Harrison spent 35 years in Portand, Oregon before their strategic move to Walla Walla. The growing climate was ideal for Cabernet Sauvignon, Ken’s preferred varietal, which made this the perfect location for Abeja Winery. Ken focused on growing and producing, while Ginger operated the Harrison’s Inn.
In 2002, Ken and Ginger met the perfect additions to their Abeja Winery team, John Abbott and Molly Galt. Hailing from the Napa Valley since college, John worked at Pine Ridge and Acacia Winery. He and Molly later began Canoe Ridge Vineyard in Walla Walla. Molly handled all of the marketing and public relations and John was the winemaker for almost ten years.
When choosing a name for their vineyard, they wanted to represent a period of farming that had respect for the environment and close connection to the earth. The word “Abeja” is Spanish for bee. The simplistic nature and beauty of the word complimented their “farm softly” style. The honeybee is the ultimate symbol for their way of life because honeybees are so impacted by how one farms and yet very important to an ample and robust style of agriculture. The Abeja Winery truly strives to make a difference by minimizing impact and nurturing the land. Abeja vineyards are certified sustainable farming by organizations such as LIVE, Salmon Safe, and Vinea.
Some wines from Abeja Winery:
Any Abeja wines we have in stock are listed below, if you don’t see the wine you are looking for please don’t hesitate to ask for it.
Weingut Prager Achleiten Riesling Smaragd is made from 100 percent Riesling.
Franz Prager, co-founder of the Vinea Wachau, had already earned a reputation for his wines when Toni Bodenstein married into the family. Bodenstein’s passion for biodiversity and old terraces, coupled with brilliant winemaking, places Prager in the highest echelon of Austrian producers.
Smaragd is a designation of ripeness for dry wines used exclusively by members of the Vinea Wachau. The wines must have a minimum alcohol of 12.5%. The grapes are hand-harvested, typically in October and November, and are sent directly to press where they spontaneously ferment in stainless-steel tanks.
Achleiten sits east of Weißenkirchen and is one of the most famous vineyards in the Wachau. The steeply-terraced vineyard existed in Roman times. Some sections have just 40 cm of topsoil over the bedrock of Gföler Gneiss, amphibolitic stone, and slate. “Destroyed soil,” as Toni Bodenstein likes to say.
Tasting Notes:
Austrian Riesling is often defined by elevated levels of dry extract thanks to a lengthy ripening period and freshness due to dramatic temperature swings between day and night. Wines from Achleiten’s highly complex soils are famously marked by a mineral note of flint or gun smoke, are intensely flavored, and reliably long-lived.
Food Pairing:
Riesling’s high acidity makes it one of the most versatile wines at the table. Riesling can be used to cut the fattiness of foods such as pork or sausages and can tame some saltiness. Conversely, it can highlight foods such as fish or vegetables in the same way a squeeze of lemon or a vinaigrette might.
Review:
The 2020 Ried Achleiten Riesling Smaragd offers a well-concentrated, fleshy and spicy stone fruit aroma with crunchy and flinty notes. It needs some time to get rid of the stewed fruit flavors, though. Full-bodied, fresh and crystalline, this is an elegant, complex and finely tannic Riesling that needs some years rather than a carafe to polymerize the tannins and gain some finesse. Tasted at the domain in June 2021.
At Prager, I could not determine that 2020 would be inferior to the 2019 vintage; on the contrary, the 2020 Smaragd wines fascinated me enormously in their clear, cool, terroir-tinged way. A 38% loss had occurred mainly because of the hail on August 22, although predominantly in the Federspiel or Riesling vineyards. There was no damage in the top vineyards such as Ried Klaus, Achleiten or Zwerithaler. "Interestingly, the vines are in agony for about two weeks after the hail. There was no more growth, no development of ripeness and sugar," reports Toni Bondenstein. The Veltliner then recovered earlier, while even picking a Riesling Federspiel in October was still a struggle. "Why Riesling reacted more intensively to the hail, I don't know myself either," says Bodenstein. Whole clusters were pressed to preserve acidity and to compensate for the lower extract, and compared to 2019, the 2020s were left on their lees longer. In June, however, the 20s in particular showed outstanding early shape.
-Wine Advocate 94 Points
Light yellow-green, silver reflections. Yellow stone fruit nuances with a mineral underlay, notes of peach and mango, a hint of tangerine zest, mineral touch. Juicy, elegant, white fruit, acidity structure rich in finesse, lemony-salty finish, sure aging potential.
-Falstaff 95 Points
Cazaux Gigondas Tour Sarrasine is made from 75% Grenache, 15% Syrah, 10% Mourvèdre. 45 year old vines on average.
This strong, warm wine comes from a selection of grapes planted on exceptional soils. The vineyards in Gigondas are situated on the arid hills of the Dentelles de Montmirail. The Mistral blows regularly on these slopes which limits the amount of treatment needed to the vines. The vines grow on stony soils and produce wine that can be kept easily for 10 yrs.
Intense, persistent red and dark fruit aromas. Raspberry, pepper and spice flavors. Silky tannins.