2015 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon

JD98+ Coming all from Red Mountain and 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Galitzine Vineyard spent 21 months in all new French oak. Deep inky plum/purple-colored with a huge nose of blackcurrants, singed herbs, black licorice, and scorched earth, this beast of a Washington State Cabernet has building tannin, a huge mid-palate, and a great, great finish. It needs to be forgotten for 3-4 years but will keep for 2-3 decades. Maturity 2021 – 2046

WA93+ Opening in the glass with notes of minty chocolate, ripe blackberries, crème de cassis and incense, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Galitzine Vineyard is the firmest, most structurally austere of the Quilceda Creek bottlings this year. Full-bodied and lavished with creamy new oak, it’s layered and concentrated but youthfully chewy on the palate, with a deep core of dark fruit and a spicy, vanillin-inflected finish. While Quilceda’s other bottlings are more youthfully precocious, this will require 3 or 4 years before it really rewards pulling corks. I wouldn’t mind seeing gentler extraction and a more understated barrel program.