A beautifully balanced Bordeaux-styled wine, showing brighter fruit than its French compatriot, but none of the irritating sweetness that characterizes so many of its California cousins. With excellent length, evolving and layered fruit, spice, and wood flavors, and an enticingly opulent bouquet, this is a wine well worth savoring.
Chateau Ste. Michelle, Columbia Valley (Washington) 2008
By Paul Lukacs