" We don't sell the wine without touching the vine "
Avennia Sestina Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
No longer available.
| Country: | United States |
| Regions: | Washington Washington (Walla Walla) |
| Winery: | Avennia |
| Grape Type: | Cabernet Sauvignon |
| Vintage: | 2017 |
| Bottle Size: | 750 ml |
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Each magnum is signed by the winemaker!
Avennia Sestina Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc.
The story of this wine - The Sestina is an ancient form of poetry from Medieval France. Just as a modern poet can fill this form with new expressions, Avennia uses the traditional Bordeaux blend to express Washington. Sestina is their vision for an old vine, complex blend where all of the components complement each other. This wine is designed for the cellar, so the emphasis is on structure, balance, and complexity.
Winemaker Tasting Notes - “Good deep ruby/garnet color, with aromas of black cherry, fresh black currant, dark mocha, cigar box, and graphite. The palate is lively and dense with mountain berries, mocha, vanilla honey, damp earth, and wildflowers. The finish shows a distinct chalky minerality and beautiful tension. This is a classically balanced and ageworthy Sestina. Drink 2025-2040.” - Chris Peterson, Winemaker
Review:
The Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated release from Peterson, the 2017 Sestina comes from the Red Willow, Bacchus, and Dionysus vineyards. Rocking levels of crème de cassis, sappy herbs, violets, and cedar pencil all flow to a full-bodied, incredibly pure, polished 2017 that offers flawless balance, ripe tannins, and a great, great finish. It's more approachable than normal yet is still going to evolve for 15 to 20 years. The blend is 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Franc, all raised 20 months in 50% new French oak.
-Jeb Dunnuck 95 Points
With a focused and delineated nose, the 2017 Sestina is bold and complex with aromas of blackberry preserves, spiced plums, dark cherry skins and elegant tones of vanilla, baking spices, baked earth, dried herbs and bitter dark chocolate. Full-bodied, the wine is generous and expressive, showing layers that evolve with intensity, expressing flavors of chocolate dark, fruit compote and elegant oak spices before displaying an inky mid-palate. The wine has a long, drawn-out finish that continues to evolve, revealing many of its secrets with vanilla and cinnamon over graphite with juicy plums and blackberry essence. Wow! Give it a few more years in the cellar before opening.
-Anthony Mueller (Robert Parker) 94 Points
Bright, dark red with ruby tones. Musky aromas of redcurrant, spices, olive and flowers, plus a hint of graphite minerality that Chris Peterson says comes from Bacchus Vineyard. Wonderfully silky, thick and round without being heavy, offering complex flavors of redcurrant, minerals, spices, saddle leather and shoe polish lifted by notes of wild herbs and flowers. There's also a peppery nuance here that does not come across as green. Perhaps a bit more open-knit than the 2016 version was a year ago, but this beauty still has more to show. (Incidentally, Chris Peterson told me that he does not plan to release his 2017 Red Willow Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon until the fall of 2020.) (3.82 pH; all from mature vines, the oldest dating back to 1972; 50% new oak)
-Stephen Tanzer (Vinous) 93 Points
Avennia Sestina Red Blend is made from 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc.
The Sestina is a poetic form from Medieval France. Just as a contemporary poet can use an old form like the Sestina to express modern ideas, we use the traditional Bordeaux blend to make modern wines that express Washington fruit. Sestina is our vision for an old vine blend where the focus is on structure, balance, and complexity. This wine is designed for the cellar, but is enjoyable now.
Sestina: This wine is a blockbuster, with black currant, black raspberry, saddle leather, freshly tilled earth, vanilla, and violet on the nose. Exceedingly rich and balanced on the palate, with great poise and structure for long aging. The finish echoes with fresh black fruits, minerally touches, and floral notes.
Review:
Made from 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot and 6% Cabernet Franc, the 2020 Sestina immediately commands attention with its impressive volume and precision as it erupts in a symphony of freshness and focus, offering captivating notes of red and purple flowers, graphite, dark cherry and spiced plum skin. Possessing a full-bodied palate, the wine reveals hidden depths, with dusty blackberry and dusty dark plum dancing alongside flavors of spiced cherry compote. Sestina's balanced structure showcases lifting tannins and succulent acidity, culminating in a fine, long finish. This wine was made using native yeast and was fermented 60% in concrete. Aged for 21 months in 50% new French oak, the wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered, preserving its purity and earning a resounding "Bravo" for its excellence. It is my top pick from the range. Only 4,656 bottles produced.
-Anthony Mueller (Robert Parker) 96 Points
Gorgeous. This Cabernet-based blend from some of Washington's top vineyards, including Dionysus, Red Willow and Bacchus, is revelatory. Aromatics of violets, petrichor and wet concrete lead into notes of crushed stone, bay leaf and early-season blackberry. The palate is lush, with fleshy blue and black fruits. There is savoury thyme, crushed flint, and cocoa nibs. Winemaker Chris Peterson has captured a showy elegance with this iteration of Sestina that will last for easily a decade.
-Decanter World Wine Awards 95 Points
One of the standouts in the lineup is the 2020 Sestina, a blend of 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, and 6% Cabernet Franc from the Dionysus, Red Willow, and Bacchus vineyards. Its deeper purple hue is followed by a medium to full-bodied, seamless, elegant wine offering plenty of spicy currant fruit, notes of dried herbs, loamy earth, and lead pencil, fine tannins, and a great finish.
-Jeb Dunnuck 94 Points
Toasted cedar, pine cones, walnuts and cocoa with ripe blackcurrants and cherries....
-James Suckling 93 Points
Avennia Sestina Red Blend is made from 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Franc.
The Sestina is a poetic form from Medieval France. Just as a contemporary poet can use an old form like the Sestina to express modern ideas, we use the traditional Bordeaux blend to make modern wines that express Washington fruit. Sestina is our vision for an old vine blend where the focus is on structure, balance, and complexity. This wine is designed for the cellar, but is enjoyable now.
Sestina: This wine is a blockbuster, with black currant, black raspberry, saddle leather, freshly tilled earth, vanilla, and violet on the nose. Exceedingly rich and balanced on the palate, with great poise and structure for long aging. The finish echoes with fresh black fruits, minerally touches, and floral notes.
Review:
The 2021 ‘Sestina’ is a gorgeous blend of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon with smaller parts Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Needing about 30 minutes in the decanter to fully unwind, this yields beautiful black florals that mingle well with wet stone, Black Forest Cake and suggestions of huckleberry with garrigue notes. The palate is soft and refined with a silky texture and beautiful sense of elegance and weight. This is seamless throughout the drinking experience, loaded with black fruit flavors with dark chocolate shavings and suggestions of underbrush. Refined tannins frame this stunning heavyhitter of a Cabernet that is already drinking beautifully now at the three year mark. Savor this beauty now and over the next fifteen to twenty years.
-Owen Bargreen 96 Points
The book end to the Right Bank-inspired Valery, this is the Left Bank-inspired wine which blends 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 9% Cabernet Franc. Sourced from old vine Bacchus, Dionysus, Red Willow and DuBrul grapes, it’s given the rock star treatment with 21 months in 50% new French oak. I love the flavors of the well-chosen barrels, which match those spicy/toasty notes to fruit with both power and palate presence. Beautifully structured, powerful yet restrained, with ripe black fruits that trail into powdery tannins, this is a special wine with a long life ahead.
-Paul Gregutt 97 Points
Avennia Sestina Red Blend is made from 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Franc.
The Sestina is a poetic form from Medieval France. Just as a contemporary poet can use an old form like the Sestina to express modern ideas, we use the traditional Bordeaux blend to make modern wines that express Washington fruit. Sestina is our vision for an old vine blend where the focus is on structure, balance, and complexity. This wine is designed for the cellar, but is enjoyable now.
Sestina: This wine is a blockbuster, with black currant, black raspberry, saddle leather, freshly tilled earth, vanilla, and violet on the nose. Exceedingly rich and balanced on the palate, with great poise and structure for long aging. The finish echoes with fresh black fruits, minerally touches, and floral notes.
Review:
The Bordeaux blend is where winemaker Chris Peterson shows his skillset, and this 2022 version of Sestina, a Left Bank homage, is no different. The Sestina showcases Washington's top sites, including Red Willow, Bacchus, DuBrul and Dionysus. There is a splendid sophistication in the aromatics, with singed violets, chipped flint, dusty berries and dried mint leaves. The palate, still wound tight, luxuriates in red fruits, with strawberries and cherries lifted by piquant blood orange notes. There's a sophisticated dark element of graphite minerals and smoky salinity. Fine tannin, superb structure and a mocha-tinged finish that is kissed with a green peppercorn. This wine shows a brilliant acidity to balance its depth. Classic and concise, exceptional.
-Decanter World Wine Awards 97 Points
The winery’s flagship Bordeaux blend, the 2022 Sestina is a grand vin made from older vines, mostly from grapevines put in the ground in the 1970s and 1980s. It combines 78% Cabernet Sauvignon with 14% Merlot and 8% Cabernet Franc, sourcing from the likes of Red Willow, Dionysus, DuBrul, and Bacchus. Elegantly full-bodied and concentrated in cassis, dried herb, and oak spice, it shows structure and refined tannins for aging another 15-20 years.
-Jeb Dunnuck 95 Points
The 2022 Sestina entices with a spicy blend of cedar shavings, dried rosemary and crushed black cherries. It displays silken textures and admirable weight offset by tart wild berry fruits and mineral tones. A wave of lavender pastille adds a welcoming confectionery tinge. A coating of fine tannins flexes upon the palate as this tapers off dramatically long with staining of liquid florals and hints of spice. Fantastic.
-Eric Guido (Vinous) 94 Points
Avennia Red Willow Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.
The Red Willow Cabernet is a true blockbuster.
Coming from one specific block of 30 year old vines at this iconic vineyard, then strictly barrel selected, this is the essence of powerful, old vine Washington Cabernet. After all of our efforts promoting the idea of the Bordeaux blend, it would take a pretty compelling argument to suspend that idea and make a 100% varietal Cabernet. In 2016 Red Willow provided us with just that. Each time we tasted it in the barrel, the belief grew that this was something special. Something we can't make every year. In the end we were won over, and decided to make a limited amount of this wine. But don't be fooled, as this too is a blend and a selection. Each year as we are tasting the grapes as harvest approaches, we notice that the vines near the bottom of this long, steep west-facing slope, are a little different. The vines at the bottom are in a little richer soil, and get a little more water, so we pick them separately, sometimes even a week or ten days apart, and keep them separate in barrel.
This wine is all from the top of the vineyard, with its lower yield and poorer soils giving more concentration and interest. Then further, nearly every combination of new and used French oak barrels were trialed to find the best blend. It's not enough just to use the four best barrels, but to trial each combination to see how they complement each other. For a wine with this much mass, 100% new French oak was used for the first time at Avennia. It is a wine that needs a little cellaring to start, but should last a very long time.
Review:
The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Red Willow Vineyard is 100% Red Willow Cabernet Sauvignon that will spend roughly 20 months in close to 100% new French oak. Blackcurrants, smoked herbs, chocolate, and graphite notes all give way to a full-bodied, plump, rich, concentrated effort that's going to be better with short-term cellaring and keep for two decades. I continue to consider Chris Peterson’s Avennia estate to be one of the best in Washington State and he’s been making world-class wines for a number of years now. He releases two white wines: A Sauvignon Blanc called Oliane and a Rhone blend of Roussanne and Marsanne called La Perle. The reds are broken up into a Rhône/Bordeaux groups, with the Rhônes including a Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre blend called Justine, and two single-vineyard Syrahs, the Le Corbeau from Mays’ Discovery Vineyard in Horse Heaven Hills and the Arnaut from Dick Boushey’s Boushey Vineyard on the western side of the Yakima Valley. The Bordeaux releases are built around the appellation blends and include the entry-level Gravura, Valery (Merlot dominated), and Sestina (Cabernet Sauvignon dominated). In addition, Peterson also makes a pure Cabernet Franc from Champoux Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills and a pure Cabernet Sauvignon from very old vines in the Red Willow Vineyard. As I hope these reviews show, these are brilliant wines readers need to seek out.
-Jeb Dunnuck 96 Points
Bursting from the glass with impeccable precision, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Red Willow Vineyard is the real McCoy, boasting a focused frame of fruit on the nose that shows depth and breadth in layers of aromas—blackberry, dark cherry, licorice and clove-laced spices flutter over a bed of roses. I can't stop smelling this wine! Full-bodied, the wine unfolds and expands across the palate with complexity, tight structure and beautifully managed tannins, ending with a thought-provoking and long-lingering finish. The wine has a still-tight expression that will age beautifully for years to come. It will serve you well to seek out a bottle of this world-class wine. Only 140 cases were made.
-Anthony Mueller (Robert Parker) 95 Points
Avennia Red Willow Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.
The Red Willow Cabernet is a true blockbuster.
Coming from one specific block of 30 year old vines at this iconic vineyard, then strictly barrel selected, this is the essence of powerful, old vine Washington Cabernet. After all of our efforts promoting the idea of the Bordeaux blend, it would take a pretty compelling argument to suspend that idea and make a 100% varietal Cabernet. In 2016 Red Willow provided us with just that. Each time we tasted it in the barrel, the belief grew that this was something special. Something we can't make every year. In the end we were won over, and decided to make a limited amount of this wine. But don't be fooled, as this too is a blend and a selection. Each year as we are tasting the grapes as harvest approaches, we notice that the vines near the bottom of this long, steep west-facing slope, are a little different. The vines at the bottom are in a little richer soil, and get a little more water, so we pick them separately, sometimes even a week or ten days apart, and keep them separate in barrel.
This wine is all from the top of the vineyard, with its lower yield and poorer soils giving more concentration and interest. Then further, nearly every combination of new and used French oak barrels were trialed to find the best blend. It's not enough just to use the four best barrels, but to trial each combination to see how they complement each other. For a wine with this much mass, 100% new French oak was used for the first time at Avennia. It is a wine that needs a little cellaring to start, but should last a very long time.
Review:
The flagship Cabernet, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Red Willow Vineyard is all varietal, from old vines in a great vineyard in Yakima Valley, that spent 20 months in 80% new French oak. It reveals a deep purple hue as well as a backward, brooding nose of smoked blackcurrants, tobacco, scorched earth, and violets. It has beautiful richness yet takes plenty of coaxing to open up. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied and has a nicely textured, balanced mouthfeel, plenty of tannins, and outstanding length. It's mostly potential at this point and is going to benefit from at least 4-5 years of bottle age, but my money is on it having 20+ years of prime drinking.
-Jeb Dunnuck 96 Points
Product Description
Avennia Sestina Cabernet Sauvignon (Red Blend) is made from 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc
The Sestina is a poetic form from Medieval France. Just as a contemporary poet can use an old form like the Sestina to express modern ideas, we use the traditional Bordeaux blend to make modern wines that express Washington fruit. Sestina is our vision for an old vine blend where the focus is on structure, balance, and complexity. This wine is designed for the cellar, but is enjoyable now.
Sestina: This wine is a blockbuster, with black currant, black raspberry, saddle leather, freshly tilled earth, vanilla, and violet on the nose. Exceedingly rich and balanced on the palate, with great poise and structure for long aging. The finish echoes with fresh black fruits, minerally touches, and floral notes.
Review:
The Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated release from Peterson, the 2017 Sestina comes from the Red Willow, Bacchus, and Dionysus vineyards. Rocking levels of crème de cassis, sappy herbs, violets, and cedar pencil all flow to a full-bodied, incredibly pure, polished 2017 that offers flawless balance, ripe tannins, and a great, great finish. It's more approachable than normal yet is still going to evolve for 15 to 20 years. The blend is 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 17% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Franc, all raised 20 months in 50% new French oak.
-Jeb Dunnuck 95 Points
Winery: Avennia
The Avennia Estate
Our goal is to make wines that evoke clarity: clarity of place, clarity of type, clarity of purpose.
We believe this is best expressed by using the classic French varietals and blends, with methods passed down over generations. We work within this context to allow Washington vineyards and terroirs to distinguish themselves. Terroir is only readily appreciable in a well-formed, harmonious wine. Structure is the backbone from which beauty can radiate.
Avennia is inspired by the Roman name for the city of Avignon, and signifies for us the heart of Old World winemaking. Our wines are designed to tease rather than flaunt; pique interest, not beg for attention. They stand for elegance, delicacy, purity. Our wines are made to enhance conversation, not dominate it, and will be a welcome guest at the table
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Review:
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Review:
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