Wine of the Week: Sagelands Cabernet Sauvignon

Wine: Sagelands Cabernet Sauvignon

Grapes: Cabernet sauvignon (80 percent), merlot (15 percent), malbec (3 percent), syrah (2 percent)

Region: Columbia Valley, Wash.

Vintage: 2012

Price: $8.99

Availability: Lee’s Discount Liquor, general retail

In the glass: Sagelands Cabernet Sauvignon is a deeply opaque purplish-red color with a dense blackish core going out into a saturated violet-fuchsia red rim definition with high viscosity.

On the nose: The wine reveals freshly crushed bright black fruit led by currants, creme de cassis, some crushed black pepper over notes of raspberry and cherry fruit, ground black plum skins, jammy character, exotic spices, tobacco, minerals and phenolic components.

On the palate: There is nice concentration of cassis fruit with lots of creamy crushed black fruit, especially cherries and blackberries, then marionberries, huckleberry sauce, minerals and vanilla bean notes. The midpalate shows itself off with a lovely balanced play between the solid fruit, the fine acidity and the ripe tannins with underlying hints of cassis and oak. The finish is plentiful and lengthy with good amounts of fleshy fruit concentrate and herbs as well as minerals that linger for 30-plus seconds.

Odds and ends: It has been a while since the last Washington wine was reviewed here, but don’t take that to be an indication that there’s a quality problem with the wines coming from the many exciting appellations in that state. They just had a difficult vintage in 2011, similar to the wines of Napa Valley and much of California, and so they didn’t show well in some of my many tastings, but finally the 2012’s have started to come out, and they’re a huge success in Washington, Oregon and California. Sagelands is owned and marketed by the successful Precept Wine Co., and they’ve started accumulating top-selling brands such as House Wine, Canoe Ridge and Gruet sparkling from New Mexico, where they have a strong lineup of brands that do well in pretty much all 50 states. Sagelands was established in 1984 by some of the partners in Precept and this cabernet sauvignon is made from fruit sourced from three distinct vineyards in the fertile Columbia Valley, which gives it a different flavor profile from its “cousins” from California. For one, the climate in Washington tends to be more temperate than, for example, Napa, and is more reminiscent of, for instance, Bordeaux in France, arguably the home of cabernet sauvignon. It is a delicious example of the great wines coming from that wonderful 2012 vintage and as they start to be more visible in the market, they are definitely preferable to 2011’s in general. This reasonably priced wine is young and needs a good hour out of the bottle to “breathe,” by either just opening or decanting. Try it with a pair of grilled lamb chops over mashed potatoes and drink it now through 2020.

Gil Lempert-Schwarz’s wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89106-0749, or email him at gil@winevegas.com.