2016 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Galitzine Vineyard
Market price
Buying options
Tasting notes
Bright ruby-red. Inky aromas of boysenberry, cassis, blackberry and herbs convey a slightly medicinal quality. Medium-to-full-bodied, penetrating and still youthfully closed but already quite juicy thanks to fresh acidity, showing a strong Red Mountain blueberry character and underlying notes of minerals and bitter chocolate. Finishes with substantial tongue-dusting tannins that call for a good five or six years of cellaring. This distinctly reserved wine is a bit more sharply delineated but less creamy than the estate's flagship Cabernet, perhaps due to the cool late-summer weather in 2016; only time will tell if it's that wine's equal for sheer class. (3.86 pH; from a relatively hot, windswept site on nutrient-deficient soil that ripens its small, thick-skinned berries early, with good acid retention; beginning with this vintage, the wine has been aged in 100% new Darnajou barrels)
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
Red fruited and expressive, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Galitzine Vineyard opens with the classic Red Mountain rusticity on the nose along with rich and elegant dark red fruits. Full-bodied, the palate has a crunchy minerality and firm tannins that will mellow in time. The focus here is clearly on the fruit, with the impressively well-integrated 100% new French oak lending seductive baking spices accents to the dark cherry and black raspberry expressions, followed by a slight tartness on the finish. This will do best after a few years in the cellar and will go for a decade or two. I look forward to revisiting this bottling over the next decade. Absolutely stunning! Only 1,050 cases made.
From a site on Red Mountain, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Galitzine is a deeper, richer, more mineral-laced red and has a huge nose of dark chocolate, smoked earth, graphite, black licorice, and black fruits. It’s full-bodied, has tons of concentration and depth, as well as building tannins, yet it still stays seamless and elegant on the palate, with an incredible texture. It’s another full-bore, powerful, brilliant wine from this team that’s going to benefit from short term cellaring and cruise for two decades.
About the producer
Founded in 1978, Quilceda Creek helped put Washington Cabernet on the world stage. Mentored by André Tchelistcheff, the family-owned winery became renowned for its powerful, age-worthy Cabernets and was the first U.S. winery outside California to earn 100 points from Wine Advocate.