Columbia Winery™ Vision Red Blend Vintage 2018

With roots dating back to 1962, Columbia Winery has been discovering and celebrating Washington wine for over 55 years. Columbia’s forward-thinking philosophy continues today in the hands of a talented and innovative winemaking team led by Winemaker, Sean Hails. We believe the sum of Washington is greater than its parts, inspiring winemaking and blending philosophies rooted in discovery, sourcing our fruit from across a range of Washington’s premier AVAs. Guided by our vision of high quality, approachable wines, each season we select premier vineyard sites, refine our oak regimen and cellar techniques to impart nuance, texture, and complexity in our wines.

About the Wine: Our 2018 Vision Red Blend is a Rhône-style red blend borne of our Winemaker Sean Hails’ goal to create a blend with stand-out color, flavor and finish. For the 2018, Sean brought together three classic Rhône varieties: Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre. Vision brims with generous aromas of fresh-picked dark plum and tangy red cranberry with a unique hint of pepper spice from the Mourvèdre. Notes of ripe red and dark fruits reminiscent of cherry pie filling linger on the palate and mingle with hints of chocolate. Vision finishes with soft tannins and luscious, lengthy hints of fruit and spice that is richly satisfying.

Vintage Notes: The 2018 Vision Red Blend was crafted primarily with grapes sourced from the Horse Heaven Hills AVA. We set our sites on the renowned Six Prong Vineyard, which offers consistent, high-quality fruit year after year. This site gives us complex, concentrated fruit, resulting in wines with ripe dark fruit notes and a touch less acidity.

Winemaking Notes: We harvested the majority of the Syrah Sept 26, 2018, and then waited to get the Grenache in mid-October. The grapes for this wine were all destemmed at the winery before being moved to tanks, stainless steel bins and oak roller barrels. We performed a saignée on a portion of the Grenache to enhance color and structure. We fermented at 88°F and used pump overs for intense extraction of color and flavor. We also completed malolactic fermentation to create a round mouthfeel. All lots were aged in 225-liter oak barrels for 16 months in a combination of 68% French, 18% American and 15% Hungarian oak barrels (only 13% new).

Varietal Content: 53% Syrah, 30% Grenache, 17% Mourvèdre Appellation: Horse Heaven Hills Alcohol Content: 15.1% Titratable Acidity: 5.88 g/L pH: 3.72 Cases Produced 1089 Bottling Date May 12, 2020