Andrew
Will
Champoux Vineyard Red 04 $53.95/$59.95 http://www.northwest-wine.com/Andrew-Will-Champoux%20Vineyard-Red-2004.html
Parker's Wine Advocate
gave 93 points to the previous vintage.
Wow the nose! Impossibly inviting
aromas of sweet black cherry pie with black
raspberry, dark chocolate, and hints of baking
spice. I just couldn't stop smelling it. The
Champoux fruit core is dense, wound up with
black and red red fruit in innummerable layers.
Supple and silky with powder-fine tannins.
The whole wine is wrapped with
a delicate Bordeaux-like herbal note that adds
complexity like the sizzle of a jazz ride cymbal--it
just fits. Give it air, give it time and you'll
see why this is one of the finest wines from
one of the finest vineyards in the entire Pacific
Northwest. - ml
44% Cab 22% Merlot 25% Cab
Franc 9% Petit Verdot
For the 2004 Champoux Vineyard
blend, Camarda changed the mix around, using
less Cabernet Sauvignon than in previous vintages,
adding some Petit Verdot and filling out the
rest with Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The result
is a beautiful, food-hugging wine that will
gracefully age for many years. Camarda says
the red and black fruits meld beautifully in
this Bordeaux-style blend.
Andrew Will
Ciel du Cheval
04
$53.95/$59.95
http://www.northwest-wine.com/Andrew-Will-Ciel-du-Cheval-2004.html
Perfumey red fruit with intense
notes of cassis give way to gorgeously ripe
black raspberry and cherry. This is a tightly
wound wine, with great concentration and polished
tannins. Practice patience and you'll find
yet another collectible Ciel du Cheval red
wine from Chris Camarda. - ml
Parker's
Wine Advocate gave the 2002 and
2003 vintages of this wine both 94
points.
The 2004 Ciel du Cheval Vineyard
blend has the best aromatics out of all his
2004 wines, says Camarda, who has a financial
interest in the vineyard. The blend is 80 percent
Cabernet Sauvignon and 20 percent Cabernet
Franc.
Winemaker Chris Camarda says:
" “I believe that an individual
piece of property can form a signature - an
identity - and it is that face that is the
focus of my winemaking, “
“We are trying to let
the vineyards reveal themselves. I believe
that if Washington is ever to be considered
a great wine region we need to establish the
characteristics of our geographical areas and
the characteristics of each vineyard in those
areas."
He also believes that blends
of varieties also make the most complex and
attractive wines. The Cabernet Franc and Merlot,
two grapes which mature beautifully over the
long growing season in Eastern Washington,
when blended with Cabernet Sauvignon, best
express the characteristics of a vineyard.
Andrew
Will
Sheridan Vineyard Red 04
$47.20/$52.45
http://www.northwest-wine.com/Andrew-Will-Sheridan-Vineyard-2004.html
Chris Camarda's
own Estate "Two Blondes" Vineyard
is next door to this fine vineyard. 43% Cabernet
Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc,
2% Petit Verdot. Andrew Will’s most westerly
property, near Zillah. Silt and basalt soils
at 1200 feet elevation. Yields are naturally
low.
43% Cabernet Sauvignon,
30% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot.
A deep fruit nose
with black raspberry and dark plums, vanilla
and fresh tobacco. Structured, bright cherry
and black raspberry flavors are woven with
dusty tannins, graphite, and espresso with
lovely barrel spice. The Sheridan will evolve
nicely over the next several years. -ml
“We won’t make
a Sheridan Vineyard blend in 2006,” Camarda
said. “The ’04 Sheridan is one
of the best vintages we’ve gotten from
that vineyard. It has softness, good complexity
and very good flavors, but we want to go with
our own estate fruit in 2006.”
The 2004 Sheridan Vineyard
blend has spice and plum flavors in the mouth.
Camarda says it is the best fruit he has received
from the vineyard.
New Feature Article
on Avalonwine.com
Chris
Camarda Continues
Drilling to the Core
of
Great Winemaking
While Hovering at the Top of the Heap
by
Christina Kelly
October 2006
The last two years for Chris
Camarda has been a mixed blessing, but the
owner/winemaker for Andrew Will Winery continues
to penetrate the heart of blending wines with
elegance, concentration and a match for food.
In the past few years, Camarda lost his beloved
wife Anne to cancer, dropped single-vineyard
varietals for hand-crafted blends and nurtured
his own estate vineyard, Two Blondes, which
will replace other vineyards in his portfolio.
He will soon be named Wine & Spirits
Magazine’s 2006 Winemaker of the Year for
artisan wines.
But overall, Camarda, a relentless
enthusiast of Washington state vineyards, shrugs
and says life is going well and he and his
family (son Willie, 19 and daughter Luci, 16)
are recovering after the loss of Anne. While
Camarda is the soul of Andrew Will Winery,
Anne was the heart, and the family is learning
the pace of a different rhythm without her.
On the verge of his new 2004
releases, the 59-year-old lights up about the
vintage, showing the passion and excitement
that elevated his wines to the top tier after
17 years of production. The wines are highly
praised as true expressions of the vineyard,
without manipulating or over-extracting the
fruit, or using oak as a blanket that hides
great flavors.
Camarda believes vineyards
hold the key to a unique identity—a signature—that
consumers will come to identify. He also believes
that in addition to the process of minimally-invasive
winemaking, how he blends those signature vineyards
is the art of his work, a left-brain, right-brain
blend of skills. The vineyard is the canvas
and his fruit becomes the palette from which
he chooses his blends.
While many people talk about
terroir, or expression of the land in the wine,
Camarda studies it, lives and breathes it until
he has that distinct taste in the bottle....
Read
the full article
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541-752-7418
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