Also recommended, but no tasting note given. Columbia Crest is a 2.5 million-case outgrowth of behemoth Ste Michelle, sharing fruit from Cold Creek, and based amid enormous riverside acreage not far from Ste Michelle's Canoe Ridge Three decades old, this winery is dedicated to a very distinctive style of wines that are treated according to a different methodology, inter alia involving assemblage prior to barreling down to do malo, and in the reserve wines the completion of primary fermentation in barrel. A native of Mendoza, Juan Munoz Oca joined the team here in 2003 and became head winemaker in 2011. His long-time predecessor in that position and only the second to hold it, Ray Einberger - now officially Winemaker Emeritus - thus had final say in the making of many of those wines I tasted on this occasion. "I'll be happy," notes Oca modestly but displaying confidence, "if at the end of my tenure nothing has dramatically changed in how people look at Columbia Crest." The winery portfolio is broken into three distinct groups: a so-called Grand Estates tier of inexpensive Chardonnay, Cabernet, and Merlot based on fruit from the Horse Heaven Hills and Wahluke Slope; an -H3- label based on fruit of those same three varieties from Alder Ridge, McKinley Springs, and Coyote Canyon in the Horse Heaven Hills; and a reserve tier featuring various blends that receive long elevage in all or nearly-all new barrels. Confitured fruit and prominent caramelized resin from (a hundred thousand!) barrels - even the inexpensive Cabernet gets one-third new wood, both French and American - are common denominators for most of the wines I tasted, and I am sure there are tasters for whom the styles here - especially in the reserve tier - will hold greater appeal than they did for me. And I could only recommend, modestly, a few of the whites I tasted. Even so, there are some imposing results in the entire Columbia Crest line-up, including some remarkable values. Tel. (509) 875-2061

The 2007 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, sourced from several AVAs, contains tiny amounts of Merlot and Cabernet Franc and was aged for 25 months in 100% new French and American oak. A brooding bouquet offers up toasty oak, Asian spices, incense, leather, black currant, and blackberry. On the palate, it is substantial but slightly austere. The wine has several years of aging potential, so it could elevate its pleasure quotient with a few more years of cellaring. Columbia Crest, part of the Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, is Washington's largest winery. It produces mammoth amounts of wine (2,000,000+ cases) at a remarkably high level of quality. A visit to the cellars reveals brilliant organization, high morale, and a sense of personal involvement by the staff that undoubtedly adds value to the finished wine.www.columbia-crest.com

A restrained and somewhat backward reserve, this is hiding its fruit behind a dry, somewhat earthy, wall of tannin. There are interesting nuances of seed, leaf and stem, along with a base fruit flavor of raspberry/cranberry, and the wine persists into a slightly bitter finish, but it seems to be holding itself back. A second bottle was better, with a little more fruit.——P.G.(2/1/2011)—— 87