January 23, 2012
Walla Walla Valley Report 2011

Written by Sean Sullivan for www.wawinereport.com

L'Ecole No. 41
It can sometimes be difficult for established wineries to garner the attention that the upstarts do. But there’s nothing like reintroducing yourself to your customers to change that.

2011 was a good year for L’Ecole No 41, one of Walla Walla Valley’s oldest and most highly regarded wineries. It included a successful label change, website redesign, and overall rebranding. The results have helped energize sales nationally and bring the winery additional attention. To cap things off, L’Ecole landed a spot on Wine Spectator’s annual top 100 list – at No 41 no less.

The reason for L’Ecole’s continued success is, of course, it’s commitment to continually producing high quality wines. Tasting through the lineup, the consistency in quality is amazing, as is the quality to price ratio on the wines.

The current releases include some fun wrinkles. Note that, with the rebranding, the Recess Red is gone and is now listed as Red Wine. “I figured that if Quilceda Creek had a Red Wine, we could too,” managing winemaker and co-owner Marty Clubb says jokingly. One of the standouts in the current releases is the 2008 Seven Hills Vineyard Cabernet. The fruit came from the 20^th leaf from this section of the vineyard, and this 100% Cabernet is a compelling expression of valley fruit.

In other news, the Perigee Red Wine has all five Bordeaux varietals for the first time. Finally, the winery produced a wine called L’Erudite, with all proceeds going to Whitman College. This Bordeaux style blend is half from Seven Hills and half from Pepper Bridge and is a fascinating comparison to the winery’s single vineyard bottlings from these sites. “We wanted it to be a really special wine but be uniquely different,” Clubb says. As usual, they have more than succeeded.

Abeja
Who makes better Cabernet than John Abbott at Abeja?

I have to confess that many times when I feel like having a Cabernet Sauvignon, the wines from Abeja are the first that come to mind and I find myself asking this question. Abbott has a knack for the grape and year after year makes some of Washington’s finest. It’s also worth noting that the price of Abeja’s Cabernet has remained steady for a number of years, while his peers’ prices have increased. “I want to deliver a lot of value for what we are,” Abbott says, and indeed the winery does.

Standouts from the current lineup also include a 100% Merlot from Heather Hill and Bacchus vineyards as well as a 100% Cabernet from Heather Hill. This is the first vineyard designated wine from the winery’s estate vineyard, and it’s clear tasting this bottle why it was time.

Heather Hill is located in the southern section of the Walla Walla Valley AVA, east of Seven Hills Vineyard, in what I fondly refer to as ‘the occupied area’ of the valley. The vineyard was planted in 2001 and Abbott credits much of the site’s accelerated development to the sustainable farming practices used (the vineyard is certified LIVE and Salmon Safe). With the vineyard showing this well at less than ten years of age, the future is bright.