Continuing our comparative American and French wine journey, we traveled to the Walla Walla Valley AVA, famous for grapes grown in Bordeaux (Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot) and the Rhône
Valley (Syrah). In particular, we wanted to visit
L'Ecole No. 41, my dad's favorite winery. His cellar is still well-stocked with their wines (and I'm drinking and restocking). Tasting the wines and talking to the winemakers at L'Ecole was a transcendent experience as we remembered my dad and what he liked so much about this place and these wines.
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| The L'Ecole No. 41 Tasting Room. It's actually a repurposed old school building (hence the name, L'Ecole, French for the school). |
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The Walla Walla Valley features some unique geography, which is how we get this wine region tucked away like this so far from the famous coastal regions. Found in southeastern Washington and spilling over into northern Oregon, the valley is like a dry lake bed with ridges, hills, and mountains surrounding. Grapes are mostly grown on the northward facing slopes in the south of the valley, creeping up the Vansycle basalt ridge.
L'Ecole is now famous for its Bordeaux blends (i.e., mixing Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, and/or others) after wine from its Ferguson vineyard won a contest as the best Bordeaux blend in the world in 2011.
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| Ferguson Vineyard |
Having signed up months ago, Christine and I did a tasting of various single vineyard Bordeaux blends. The winemakers described to us the process of making a wine from a single vineyard. While some winemakers may source grapes from multiple vineyards in hopes of achieving year-to-year consistency for a grape varietal, estate wines or single vineyard wines show grapes from a certain parcel of land over one growing season (i.e., expression of
terroir). L'Ecole offers both types of wines -- those focused on the varietal and those focused on the
terroir -- but the estate wines are the flagship wines for L'Ecole.
The tasting consisted of multiple vintages from three different L'Ecole vineyards, each creeping higher in elevation up the southern ridge of the Walla Walla Valley cereal bowl. For each of the wines, the owner and the winemaker described to us the year the wine was made and what decisions were made in the process. Weather affects when to plant and when to harvest. After harvest, they taste all of the juices and decide what combination of grape varieties to put together. It was interesting to taste the wines from the various vineyards and different years, but it's hard to really distinguish between vintages (i.e., year of production) of wines from the same vineyards, let alone wines from different vineyards across multiple years.
The award winning wine, from the Ferguson vineyard, is from the highest vineyard. No doubt it allows for the shortest growing season, which leads to less sugar production, which makes for a less fruity wine. While many Walla Walla Valley wines show the jammy fruit from warm regions like Napa, these Ferguson wines have the more acidic, less fruity taste of Bordeaux. I may buy a case now to drink with Bobby when he's older. It seems fitting to start the third generation on L'Ecole.
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| The tastings of the estate wines in the barrel storage room was accompanied by presentations from the owner and winemaker. |
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