2017 Joleté Wines Cabernet Sauvignon Wallula Vineyard Horse Heaven Hills 750 ml

A chance meeting between Joleté’s Tom Mortimer and winemaker Brett Isenhower led directly to one of the best Washington Cab deals we’ll offer this year: the 2017 Joleté Cabernet Sauvignon Wallula Vineyard. It’s a rare, 320-case single-vineyard gem from one of the top sites in all of Washington State—a parcel that provides grapes for 100-point legend Quilceda Creek and Long Shadows Feather.

Single-vineyard Cabernet can rarely be found for this price in Horse Heaven Hills, let alone in Napa or Sonoma, and the stellar quality that has made Joleté a Wine Access favorite shines through in this classic.

Mortimer and Isenhower met at an en primeur-style tasting in Washington, and that was the beginning of the partnership between the two. The fruit source fell into place because Isenhower held a long-term contract at Wallula Vineyard. A series of spectacular terraces overlooking the Columbia River at 1,000+ feet of elevation, it’s treasured by multiple wineries for its Cabernet and Syrah plantings that date from 1997.

Long Shadows’ founder, the late Allen Shoup, bought the site in 2008 and said, "As good as the Columbia Valley vineyards are now, I believe we've yet to discover Washington's best site, but with Wallula we may have arrived.”

When the Den Hoed Family sold the vineyard to Shoup, they kept the highest terraces of the vineyard for themselves. That's where this wine comes from. Isenhower, working in tandem with Joleté’s Burgundy-based consultant Pierre Millemann, rounds the wine out with 19 months in the same top-tier, fine-grained Burgundy oak he uses for Joleté Pinots. The result is satiny, pure—and totally irresistible.