Saturday, March 9, 2019

Dissing on two Cayuse wines

There is a huge benefit in following the wines from a long-established great European wine house (like Eschezeaux in Burgundy or Pichon-Lalande in Bordeaux) --they (many of them) have been in business for decades, if not centuries, and each chateau (usually) has developed and zealously maintains its own typical favor profiles and high standard of quality.

But in this infant nation we call America, most wineries don't have that kind of history. We don't see generations from the same family taking up the family wine mantle. And, here, winery fortunes rise and fall faster than the success or failure of the Seattle Seahawks. My favorite wine distributor's owners think, for example, that K Vintners' Charles Smitth, having sold out for $120M or so, is no longer able to reliably make mind-blowing wines (and I agree, having left his wine club recently for that reason--I don't mind $80 wines if they are mind-blowing, or if they perform well on the resale market, but if they seem too ordinary, or (perversely) too innovative, they leave me feeling shortchanged).

Just so, with Cayuse. I've learned the hard way that too many of their spendy wines don't perform well on the resale market. I've learned that, five or six years on, they just don't perform well enough on the palate to merit their $80 or $90 price tag.

It hurts to say all that. For years I thought Washington's two best wineries--its "First Growths"--were those two. But stuff changes. This is not Old Europe. It is necessary to stay on top of "the good wineries of today."

Tonight, we dined at the The Hammond in Camas WA, and opened our 2014 God Only Knows Grenache. It's retailing for $150 now, and got 97 points from Robert Parker. It should've been mind-blowing, but it was undrinkable. Not flawed, but just a bad wine. Both of us thought there wasn't enough fruit evident, and the wine was thin, and the finish was bitter. That bitter finish was the death knell for me, so we defaulted to our backup bottle: 2013 Foundry Malbec, which was "very good-but-not-great."

Last night, we took a 2013 Cayuse Armada Syrah to Elements in downtown Vancouver, and we made ourselves drink it, but didn't enjoy it. It also was thin and had a bitter finish. Not a very good wine. Yes, there was some bull's blood in it, and if you strained really hard, you might imagine some blueberry, but it just wasn't good or interesting. And yet Robert Parker gave it 98 points (!) and it's retailing now for $150.

When I can get much more enjoyment from a $20 or $40 bottle made elsewhere, why wouldn't I? What a disappointment.

So, who will be the next fleeting "First Growth" from Washington? I say that Cayuse and K Vintners are no longer First Growths. Maybe Thirds, if they are lucky.




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