DeLille Doyenne Aix 2013

DeLille Doyenne Aix is made from 60% Syrah and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon

Demonstrating distinctive yet congruous notes of both Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah, this vintage creates a wine of wall-to-wall seamless fruit. The generous Syrah nose of rich, juicy raspberries, black pepper and smoky, sanguine (i.e. red) meat combine nicely with the currants, cassis and Herbs de Provence of the Cabernet Sauvignon. There is immediacy to this wine that registers off the charts on the pleasure scale. Enjoy now and over the next five years.

Review:

Tasting like a rich, ripe red from Provence, the 2013 Doyenne Aix (60/40 Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon) offers up a fabulous bouquet of ripe black currants, melted licorice, roasted herbs and pepper in a full-bodied, concentrated, even unctuous, style on the palate. Despite all of the fruit and texture, this beauty has solid underlying structure and will drink well for another 10-15 years.

This was another massive lineup of wines from the team at Delille, and as I think the scores show, I'm not complaining. The 2013s show the more elegant, streamlined style of the vintage nicely, while the 2014s offer a more unctuous, hedonistic style. These are both terrific vintages and ideally readers will have both in their cellar. The news here is the consolidation of the Doyenne releases under the Delille Cellars label. In the past, the estate kept their Rhone variety blends separate and released them under the Doyenne label, with no mention of Delille. Going forward, all of the wines will be released under the Delille label, with the Rhone inspired releases including Doyenne as part of the wine name. I think this is a good move and simplifies the labels. In addition, I'm working on a retrospective here to show the overall aging curve for a few of the cuvees. This will be published as a standalone article later this year. - 93 Point Wine Advocate 

The DeLille Cellars Estate
Founded in 1992, DeLille Cellars is a small family owned winery located in Woodinville, Washington.  Their goal is to make the very best handcrafted, old-world style red and white wine made in the State of Washington.

The DeLille Cellars Vineyard
The beautiful ten-acre site sits above the Woodinville valley floor, overlooking the wineries of Chateau Ste. Michelle and Columbia Winery.  All  DeLille wines are elaborated with the highest “hand-crafted” standards.  Only grapes from the oldest and best vineyards in Washington State are used.  They are hand picked and hand sorted at crush, using only the finest berry clusters.  The wines are aged in 100% new French oak barrels each and every year and are never filtered.

The DeLille Cellars Wines

In the words of David Schildknecht, The Wine Advocate, December 2012:
"Winemaker-vineyard manager and self-styled "old world traditionalist" Chris Upchurch has been the guiding spirit of DeLille Cellars since its early-’90s inception, although the ostensibly Old World models followed have evolved significantly in both marketing and winemaking terms. Early-on, DeLille, unsurprisingly, – like so many other U.S. wineries – focused exclusively on a Bordelais vision. That said, Upchurch and his partners had been in business for nearly a decade before they purchased a vineyard: Grand Ciel, adjacent to Ciel du Cheval and Galitzine and managed by the accomplished and (seemingly in Red Mountain at least) ubiquitous Ryan Johnson. DeLille also vinifies and bottles separately the fruit of Harrison Hill’s antique vines (for more about which see my tasting note on the 2009 vintage) and a second estate vineyard project is afoot. The established if misleading name Chaleur Estate was retained for DeLille’s flagship wine crafted from contract fruit (second wine: D2); while the designation Doyenne – utilized from early-on for Syrah – morphed into an officially separate winery for experimental-minded exploration of themes inspired by Southern France. (For database purposes, we at The Wine Advocate / eRobertParker.com treat Doyenne as part of the relevant wines’ descriptions and a DeLille sub-label, which reflects the way those wines are marketed and the spirit in which they were presented to me. Comments on Upchurch’s vinificatory approaches can be found sprinkled though my tasting notes.)"