Walla Walla’s Rhone Touch and Legends of the Andes: Weekly Tasting Report (April 13-19)

I experienced global warming, yet again, last week in the state of Washington’s Walla Walla wine region when I spent most of the day in a serious snowstorm while visiting some of the best vineyards in the area. I tried to hike up a hill on the morning of April 14 in the steep vineyards of Hors Categorie, which were planted in syrah in the traditional Hermitage way, with two stakes per vine. The snow was so deep and slippery that I couldn’t pull myself up the slope. It didn’t help that the owner of the slightly more than two acres of vineyards, Frenchman Christophe Baron, was throwing snowballs down at me as he scampered up to the top of the hill with little difficulty. It was not one of my great vineyard moments, to say the least!

Baron makes some of the most compelling quality wines in Washington and his best are inspired by the great wines of the Rhone Valley, including old vintages of Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle and Chateau Rayas. I think that Baron’s best reds in 2019, both syrah and grenache-based wines, are better than the current vintages of both of the Rhone Valley legends. They are incredibly pure and precise with complexity, structure and elegance. And they clearly derive their great quality from their special vineyards.

The soils of his vineyards in Walla Walla are fascinating, with a combination of stones and basalt – a black volcanic earth high in calcium carbonate. This soil helps the grapes maintain their acidity in the hot summer weather. Hors Categorie is planted at high altitude and on very steep slopes, as described above, and Baron’s other vineyards are equally high but on flat fields, yet they produce fortuitous quality fruit. Some of his best are planted with very high density, at just under 3 feet by 3 feet per vine, which reduces the production of grapes through root competition as well as giving a thick canopy of leaves to protect the vines from the intense sunlight in the summer. The bottom line is that his wines have richness but relatively low alcohol (less than 14 percent) and bright acidities. It makes them incredibly drinkable when young, but they age beautifully.

We have about 40 Washington wines posted here (out of a record weekly tasting of 929 wines) but stay tuned for a full report with about 600 reviews coming shortly. Associate Editor Nathan Slone, who traveled to Washington with me, is finishing the report now.

READ MORE: OUR TOP 100 WINES OF 2021

OREGON'S PLENTIFUL PINOT

I have already written that Nathan and I also traveled to Oregon together for 10 days before going to Washington and we rated about 800 wines. I am finishing the report this week on Oregon. So much good quality pinot noir exists in Oregon that I would argue it’s easier to find a delicious bottle of terroir-driven pinot in Willamette Valley than in France’s Cote d’Or, especially for a price of about $25 to $35 a bottle. No wonder the valley continues to attract French winemakers interested in making wines there. Champagne Bollinger was the latest when it bought  the well-established winery of Ponzi Vineyards about a year ago. Expect to see more!

We have a few dozen tasting notes from a more under-the-radar US region, New York’s Finger Lakes. Senior Editor Stuart Pigott spent a few days there last week and he found many beautiful wines, especially rieslings. Our favorite producers continue to be Hermann J. Wiemer and Red Newt Cellars, but there are some others to look for, such as Anthony Road and Fox Run Vineyards.

The end of our Argentina tastings is very close in sight, and we had some last-minute reviews of great wines that include the legendary Cheval des Andes and some amazing single-vineyard wines from Terrazas de los Andes. Both wineries are owned by Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy. We see a trend for fresher and more balanced reds from both wineries emphasizing location and balance. Herve Birnie-Scott, the head of Terrazas, told me over Zoom (right) that they were looking to “thread the needle” with all their wines to make sure they show the true terroir of their altitudes, with some coming from as high as almost 5,000 feet (1,500 meters).

In our Hong Kong office, Senior Editor Zekun Shuai had a Zoom session with Emmanuel Riffaud, general manager of Baron Philippe de Rothschild Chile, and they tasted the Baron Philippe de Rothschild Chile Valle de Maipo Baronesa P. 2020, which is named after the late Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, who founded the family’s Chilean business. Despite the hot weather of that year, the 2020 Baronesa P. is the continuation of a strong trio of vintages that started in 2018. Riffaud said he thinks it’s the best Baronesa P. ever, with a unique identity blending the heritage of Pauillac, France, with the local Chilean terroir.

“Baronesa Philippine herself was fond of Pauillac, and we tried to find a linkage to Pauillac with the unique terroirs in Maipo,” said Riffaud, who is a firm believer in producing fresh and elegant wines.

The 2020 vintage consists of 81 percent cabernet sauvignon, 4 percent carmenere, 5 percent cabernet franc, 5 percent syrah and 5 percent petit verdot, and was aged for 18 months in barrel – an extra three months compared with the previous vintage. “We found there was elegance coming out from the barrels when we tasted in the winery, so we decided to extend the aging,” Riffaud said, adding that they used 5 percent less new oak for the 2020.

Along with its deep cabernet character, this warm vintage shows power and volume on the palate, carried by rich but fresh fruit with vertical and fine-grained tannins, giving the wine its distinctive personality. It’s just one of more than 130 wines we rated from Chile, but there is such a wide variety of countries, vintages and varietals in our crush of tasting notes below that it should be easy to pick a few favorites for your wine list.

– James Suckling, Chairman/Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.