Since the founding in 1978, Quilceda Creek has dedicated itself to one thing: producing world-class Cabernet Sauvignon. Director of Winemaking Paul Golitzin believes that the winery’s greatest assets are the vineyards of the Columbia Valley. Through vineyard ownership and control, and through precision farming, they are able to grow and produce the highest caliber Cabernet Sauvignon. In award of their relentless pursuit of producing perfect Cabernet Sauvignon, Quilceda Creek has received seven 100 Point ratings from Wine Advocate, three 100 Point ratings from Owen Bargreen, two 100 Point ratings from Decanter and three Top Ten Wines of the Year from Wine Spectator.
The 2021 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon is a wine for the ages. Potent aromas jump out of the glass, showing framboise candy, black tea, and a strong classic note of sandalwood. Savory cumin, sage, and garrigue round out this powerful nose. The palate is sweet and velvety, leading to an amazing crescendo of power and refinement.
Review:
- The head-turning 2022 Quilceda Creek ‘Columbia Valley’ Cabernet Sauvignon has 10% Mach One Vineyard fruit blended in, with the remainder coming from the famed Champoux Vineyard in the Horse Heaven Hills AVA. The nose is beyond alluring with toasted walnut and gorgeous purple rose petals that combine with boysenberry cordial, Turkish coffee and shades of dark licorice. The crazy complex aromatics bring you back to the glass for more enjoyment. Pillowy and opulent on the mouth, the seamless texture leads alongside outstanding weight and finesse. This is a perfect wine in a vintage that shows what can be accomplished in a slightly cooler year. Savor this remarkable achievement over the next twenty plus years to come.
Quintessa Red 2022 is made from 93% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Cabernet Franc, 1% Carménère, 1% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot.
The 2022 Quintessa is a charming wine, opening with intense aromas of black cherry and cassis that are complemented by notes of tobacco, bay laurel, cedar, and dark chocolate. Plush and inviting on entry, this wine’s flavors align with its aromas. The palate reveals dark fruits and an undertone of crushed rocks, tar, and graphite. On the finish, this vintage displays the signature fine-grained tannin of their Quintessa terroir, backed by voluminous texture and fruit.
Review:
Such an incredible wine here - one of the stars of the September releases. Smells amazing, cooling blueberries with fragrant blackcurrants, edges of florality - totally inviting scents. Full and filling in the mouth, this is ample with such a layered effect, super vertical and elongated. Tight and a little tense but it really works - such balance between black fruit, dried herbs, high acidity and a profound structure. Refined and beautifully presented. So much life, so much energy - this is pure class. A wine you don't want to put down. Feels hands off despite such concentration and power. Ends salty with sticky liquorice, mint and cooling wet stones. You could definitely drink this now but it will age too! 1% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot complete the blend. One of the final few vintages with Rodrigo Soto at the helm - he stepped down last year to concentrate on his family project Far Mountain in Sonoma Valley which is worth following. Winemaker Rebekah Wineburg.
-Decanter 99 Points
The Grade Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Winfield Vineyard is made from Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
“This wine expresses a focused balancing act of dark, rich black fruit, and a fine tannin structure, illuminated through the core with a laser-like acidity. The wine displays a deep purple-red hue with a cranberry halo. Aromas of cassis, cinnamon, citrus oil, roasted meat, and lilac swell from the glass.
“The palate is marked by a wave of jet-black brambly fruit up front, followed by an exotic spice mid-palate and a long, complex finish that lasts and lasts expressing notes of flowering jasmine, and oolong tea. The silky tannins hold everything together and will certainly allow this wine to evolve in the cellar for at least 7-10 years.” - Thomas River Brown
Review:
Coming from the Winfield Vineyard in Calistoga, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon is another brilliant wine from the hands of winemaker Thomas Rivers Brown. This deep purple-colored effort boasts tons of blueberry and jammy blackberry fruits as well a medium to full-bodied, concentrated, yet elegant style on the palate. It has the purity of fruit that’s the hallmark of the vintage, ripe, sweet tannins, and no hard edges, and is already hard to resist.
-Jeb Dunnuck 94 Points
The Grade Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Winfield Vineyard is made from Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.
“This wine expresses a focused balancing act of dark, rich black fruit, and a fine tannin structure, illuminated through the core with a laser-like acidity. The wine displays a deep purple-red hue with a cranberry halo. Aromas of cassis, cinnamon, citrus oil, roasted meat, and lilac swell from the glass.
“The palate is marked by a wave of jet-black brambly fruit up front, followed by an exotic spice mid-palate and a long, complex finish that lasts and lasts expressing notes of flowering jasmine, and oolong tea. The silky tannins hold everything together and will certainly allow this wine to evolve in the cellar for at least 7-10 years.” - Thomas River Brown
Review:
The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Winfield Vineyard is a blend taken from three blocks in the vineyard. A potent, layered Cabernet, the Winfield is super-expressive today. Dark red cherry, licorice, incense and savory herbs all flesh out in a potent, resonant Calistoga Cabernet that hits all the right notes. This is impressive, to say the least.
-- Antonio Galloni 95 Points
Alejandro Bulgheroni Lithology Beckstoffer Las Piedras Cabernet Sauvignon is made from 100 percent Cabernet Sauvignon.
From a St. Helena vineyard planted by early Napa settler Edward Bale more than 150 years ago, and later serving as the estate vineyard for the area’s first winery built by Henry Pellet in 1860, the Las Piedras site always gives us our prettiest wine. When placed next to Dr. Crane and To-Kalon wines, the Las Piedras show a certain elegance, with a very graceful entry and finely detailed complexity. We produce it with at least 75% new French oak, so there is a floral, spicy, and vanilla accent to the intense red and black fruits, cassis, and black cherry liqueur. What distinguishes this bottling is the beautifully fine tannins, delicate texture, and stunning purity. (Less than 100 cases made.)
Fermentation 70% Oak, 24% Concrete, 6% Puncheon
Review:
"The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Lithology Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard comes from a world-class site outside of St. Helena and is all Cabernet that spent 20 months in 80% new oak. It offers a touch more red fruit as well ample cassis, spring flowers, loamy earth, and spice-like aromas and flavors. It has a wonderful sense of minerality, ultra-fine tannins, a dense, layered texture, and incredibly purity of fruit. It’s another just about off the charts release from this estate."
- Jeb Dunnuck 98 Points
Jubilation is our newest wine in the Colgin Cellars collection. Jubilation is our Cabernet Sauvignon-based wine created with a selection of barrels that display earlier drinking characteristics from our three hillside vineyards. As our vine age has matured and small additions have been made to our original holdings, we had the privilege of increasing our selectivity. Following the blending of our single-vineyard wines, we were fortunate to have a collection of barrels that conveyed the same elegance and complexity for which we are known, yet on a more supple, approachable frame. Jubilation is a wine ready to enjoy now, with the pedigree to age gracefully in the cellar, maintaining the Colgin Cellars’ hallmarks of perfume, freshness, and minerality. The inaugural bottling of Jubilation from the 2016 vintage was released in late 2020. Future vintages are destined for select members of the fine wine trade.
Gaja Costa Russi Nebbiolo is made from 100 percent Nebbiolo.
Costa (Italian for the side of the hill facing the sun) Russi (the nickname of the former owner) is ruby red in color, with a captivating aroma of blackberries, violets and roasted coffee beans. The purity of the palate is layered with dark fruit flavors and complex tannins.
STYLE: Complex, Elegant
FLAVOR: Blackberry, Violet, Roasted Coffee Beans
Review:
The 2016 Barbaresco Costa Russi is a more floral, sappy Barbaresco, offering textbook notes of black cherries, rose petals, sappy herbs, and violets. It's one of the more vibrant, juicy, and perfumed wines in the lineup and has medium to full body, bright yet integrated acidity, and the same incredibly polished yet certainly present tannins found in all these 2016s. This is another elegant 2016 that never puts a foot wrong.
-Jeb Dunnuck 98+ Points
The 2016 Barbaresco Costa Russi is ripe, creamy and enveloping, as it so often is, and yet also preserves the super classic sense of structure that runs through all these wines. In 2016, Costa Russi has an extra touch of mid-palate sweetness that gives the wine its sense of immediacy. Succulent red cherry, rosewater, kirsch, mint and dried flowers meld together in the glass. Soft and sensual, with tons of allure, Costa Russi is another winner from Gaja. Time in the glass brings out the wine's density and tannins, both of which it has in spades.
- Antonio Galloni 98
This delicate red features floral, strawberry, cherry, currant and loamy earth aromas and flavors, showing terrific balance. A line of firm tannins adds support, and the finish is long and expansive. Best from 2023 through 2045. 175 cases imported.
-Wine Spectator 97 Points
While the wine has sufficient tannins and structure for long-term bottle aging, Caymus Cabernet is dark and concentrated, with ripe, luxurious, fruit-driven softness that shows from the day of release.