2018 Cayuse Impulsivo en Chamberlin
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Tasting notes
The 2018 Impulsivo displays a dark ruby core and a solid magenta rim and offers up aromas of leather, dusty violets, bone broth, blackberry reduction and dusty plums. Full-bodied for a Tempranillo, the palate offers flavors of spiced cherry compote, cedar and cigar box with pipe tobacco before fine-grained tannins coat the palate along with a soft oaky essence. The wine concludes with a long, lingering finish that offers a generous and persistent flavor of cinnamon-spiced plum compote and blackberry jus.The wine rested for19 months in French oak barrels, about 50% new. 4,992 bottles produced. Give it one more year in bottle before opening and drink through 2032.
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
Dark fruit, dried earth, burnt orange and charred wood on the nose. Itâs full-bodied with firm, chalky tannins. Intense and smoky with a spicy finish. Such intensity and focus. Best tempranillo in America? Drink or hold.
Showing beautifully, with pure cassis and black raspberry fruits as well as loads of dried flowers, cedar, tobacco, and dried herbs, the 2018 Impulsivo is medium to full-bodied and has a seamless, elegant texture, ultra-fine tannins, and a great finish. It shows more meaty, almost bloody nuances with time in the glass, and it's certainly a singular expression of Tempranillo. The tannins are present yet polished and ripe, and it has a great mid-palate as well as the balance and elegance to drink nicely today yet also improve with short-term cellaring and keep for two decades. This is a hard mailing list to crack, yet winemaker Christophe Baron continues to deliver the goods, releasing singular, exotic, incredible wines from his bevy of single vineyards in the Rocks region of the Walla Walla Valley. The 2018s show the rich yet focused, straight, elegant style of the vintage beautifully and are going to be incredibly age-worthy. While the Syrahs get all the love, don’t miss his Grenache, Tempranillo, and Bordeaux blends. His 2018 Grenache God Only Knows might be the finest Grenache I’ve ever tasted outside of France and few California releases.
Full medium ruby. Brooding aromas of black fruits, licorice, minerals and flint, lifted by a violet topnote. Smooth and highly concentrated but a bit jammy and unformed, with a powerful, almost porty black fruit element running through the wine. In fact, this tastes virtually like a barrel sample today. Finishes with very serious but well-integrated, palate-saturating tannins. Doesn't display the class of the outstanding 2017 version but needs patience. This year I preferred the No Girls Tempranillo for its redder fruits, noteworthy suavity and inner-mouth perfume. (Tempranillo from En Chamberlin vineyard) (Tasted June 2021; Published September 2021)