Palate
The wine is dynamic: opulent with terrific precision, silky textured but vibrant, amazingly complex for its youth. In short, a blockbuster.
Growing Conditions
2016 was almost an ideal vintage in Heart of the Hill. While it continued the recent trend of warm years with an early, hot start to the season, temperatures swung back in June and stayed normal-to-cool for the rest of the year. It’s a tremendous combination, as we gained the flesh and power of the early heat but with lengthy hang times at the end of harvest, allowing us to obtain pronounced depth and dimension while maintaining freshness and balance.
Heart of the Hill is something unique in our portfolio. We’ve farmed fruit from several Red Mountain vineyards since 1997 and over the years began noticing a depth and richness of the Cabernet Sauvignon from this small parcel. It had the rare combination of unmistakable character and extraordinary quality that we had not seen from other Red Mountain vineyards, or anywhere else in the Columbia Valley. This superb site demanded its own stage. The 2016 is now the third vintage of Heart of the Hillthat we’ve bottled as a single-vineyard designate. We couldn’t be more delighted with the wine…and the critics have taken notice as well.
