2014 Merlot Estate

Winemaker Kevin Mott described both 2016 and 2015 as “cooking-hot” growing seasons, pointing out that total heat units were actually higher in 2016 than in the previous year. But he also noted that some of the heat units in 2015 and 2016 were amassed after the fruit was picked and thus are less relevant to the nature of the wines themselves. Even the normally very cool Celilo Vineyard in the Columbia Gorge, which provides the acid spine of Woodward Canyon’s Chardonnay and is normally harvested two to six weeks later than Woodward Canyon’s estate vines in Louden (just west of the town of Walla Walla), needed to be protected in 2015 by more foliage, said Mott. “Canopy sprawl can enable the grapes to avoid the worst of the late-afternoon sun,” he told me. Only a bit of this wine went through malolactic fermentation. Incidentally, although Woodward Canyon has had a proven track record for making Chardonnays that last, Mott prefers to drink this bottling very early, noting that he doesn’t like aged whites.

Mott described the 2014 and 2013 vintages as similar in sugar ripeness, but explained that 2014 “had brighter fruit aromatics while 2013 featured more heat spikes that cooked off some of the aromatics of the wines.” Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc did very well in 2014, he added, although to this point he’s getting “more weedy fruit than aromatic topnotes,” which may be due to the two new clones of Cabernet Franc that Woodward Canyon recently planted in 2011.