All Horses Go to Heaven...The Horse Heaven Hills AVA

the view from Coyote Canyon Vineyards

Whenever I'm out in the Yakima Valley I always look to the south side of the river along highway 82 at those beautiful rolling hills and think, "those are the Horse Heaven Hills." And sometimes I even say it out loud, if someone is with me in the car. I suppose it makes me feel smart or informed, but in reality, while that is technically correct, that's really just the tip of the Horse Heaven Hills AVA and nowhere near where all the big work in the growing region is being done.

To get to the Horse Heaven Hills, really get there, you gotta go up over those pretty hills just behind Prosser and then drive for sometime. You'll pass some conventional farmland and then eventually you'll come to the Columbia River. This is important because as you note along your drive, much of the Horse Heaven Hills is arid, high desert. It's the Columbia River's moderating influence that even makes quality wine grape growing something you can consider out here.

It's a confluence of conditions, the Columbia, the canyons that run up from the river into the plateau above and the dry, sandy soil. In 1972 Walter Clore approached Don and Linda Mercer and convinced them to take a chance on wine grapes. Their family had been farming the Horse Heaven Hills since the 1930s growing a cornucopia of crops, wheat, onions and carrots, to name a few. The Cabernet they planted in 1972 has gone onto 100 point greatness in what is now known as Champoux Vineyard as an important part of the Quilceda Creek reputation.

Mercer Estates Spice Cabinet Vineyard

Horse Heaven Hills has certainly grown since then, McKinley Springs planted in 1980, and in 1991 Chateau Ste. Michelle planted what has become one of the AVA's most signature sites in their Canoe Ridge Vineyard. The AVA has really grown up, it's total acreage is 570,000 so it's an expansive region with only about 12,000 acres planted to vineyards. I say only but the HHH AVA comprises 25% of Washington's total wine acreage.

The wines from the area have developed a style certainly that has become a signature of the AVA, Raymon McKee the winemaker for Chateau Ste Michelle's Canoe Ridge finds the signature to be "an expression of the soil, particularly in the tannin." The tannins tend to be the most notable, they bring a real sense of elegance, and add a dusty or powdery backbone to the wine. The palates are marked with redder fruits like cranberries, or red cherry. As warm as the area is, there's definitely a structure to the wines that leans more towards Old World wines like those from Bordeaux than you'd expect.

The region is in good hands and its reputation only continues to grow as it benefits from seeing how its older vines produce outstanding fruit. The pioneering vision of the Mercer family, the talents of someone like Paul Champoux and reach of Chateau Ste Michelle, along with the fine wines the region has gone on to produce will make it a region, that while perhaps a bit out of the way, is deserving a noteworthy stake on any map of the American wine landscape.

2013 Mercer Estates Reserve Chardonnay, Horse Heaven Hills While the Horse Heaven Hills seem heaven sent for Cabernet; Chardonnay from the region can be outstanding. The Mercers are the original wine growers in the HHH,but they haven't rested on their laurels and continue to push the region forward as both growers and a winery. Jessica Munnell shows a skill set where Chardonnay is concerned with this wine, it's opulent and oaky without being buttery and boring. Aromatically rich with hazelnut, toasted bread and baked apple, the wine carries through on the strength of it's fruit and acidity. The palate is rich, balanced and ripe. $32

2012 Columbia Crest Reserve Chardonnay Horse Heaven Hills Columbia Crest has over 2,000 acres of vineyards in the Horse Heaven Hills and with their H3 line has showed an incredible commitment to the AVA. That line of wines represents one of the state's best values year to year and in the sub $20 price point is a go to Tuesday night wine for many serious wine aficionados as the quality is just so high. This Chardonnay is another case maker for the wine in the HHH. Aromatically round and ripe with notes of vanilla, nutmeg and ripe pear the palate shows a vibrancy that is too often lacking in American oaked Chardonnay along with rounded fruit flavors of pear and creme brulee. $20

2010 Double Canyon Cabernet Sauvignon Horse Heaven Hills Cabernet is king of course, and that holds true here in the Horse Heaven Hills, whether it's Champoux Vineyards or just across the street at Phinny Hill it's Cabernet that made this region famous. The Double Canyon Vineyards are just north of the Champoux Vineyards at a total of 88 acres and the connection to Phinny Hill is not just as neighbors. (Family is a thing that you hear time and again here in the Horse Heaven Hills and so Will Beightol son of Phinny Hill's Dick Beightol is managing the vineyards for this label with Napa and Willamette Valley roots.) The quality is present from the start with the fine tannin and superb structure that the more you familiarize yourself with it, you come to expect from HHH Cabernet. Aromatics of anise, black tea and dust, the wine is offers depth, and a elegant structure along with a present acidity. Flavors of mocha, red fruits and barrel spice. $40

2013 Chateau Ste. Michelle Sauvignon Blanc, Horse Heaven Hills While Cabernet and Chardonnay show so well from the HHH this wine is ridiculously good each year. Stainless and a heaping dollop of acidity make this vibrant white from one of the states warmest growing regions pulsate with citrus and stone fruit aromatics. The palate is cut fresh fruit and wet stone. For the price one of the state's best white wines year in and year out. $18

2010 McKinley Springs Malbec, Horse Heaven Hills There are many different varieties planted in the region and Malbec is one you're really seeing distinguish itself. This wine is elegant and while it offers plenty of blue and black fruits it is structured (again those dusty tannins) and very lively. (I tasted it beside a well regarded Argentinian Malbec which frankly seemed down right dumb in comparison) This wine shows aromatics, acidity, earth, spice and stony minerality along with it's dark fruits. $24

2012 Columbia Crest Reserve Malbec, Horse Heaven Hills This Malbec is a part of the limited release wines from Columbia Crest and the wines are made with an incredible amount of care. An inky black wine to behold as well as on the palate. Black fruits, smoke, earth and clove spices. Fantastically structured, with a core of black fruit. $45

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The Keeper of Canoe Ridge: Mimi Nye

The Horse Heaven Hills has become one of the largest wine growing areas in Washington state. Rising up above the Columbia River and extending north toward the Yakima River Valley the Horse Heaven Hills is windswept, dry, strangely beautiful, and very, very, very remote.

It is as unlikely a place, to the untrained eye for planting vineyards, as you might find but in 1972 Walter Clore approached Don and Linda Mercer and convinced them that it would a perfect place to grow wine. The Mercer family had farmed land in the area since the 1930s, mostly dry land wheat, onions and carrots. In 1972 they planted Cabernet Sauvignon in what was then known as Block One and today is rather famously called Champoux Vineyard and pioneered the AVA.

The acreage in the Horse Heaven Hills has grown substantially, and while Cabernet is what it has become most known for, the variety of plantings is notable. Chateau Ste. Michelle has invested heavily in the region in both its Columbia Crest label as well as it's own CSM brand, and its reserve wine-making facilities at Canoe Ridge.

In 1991 Chateau Ste. Michelle planted their Canoe Ridge Vineyard. Spanning 559 acres the vineyard is planted with a large variety of wine grapes including Riesling, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet. Since it's inception, the Canoe Ridge vineyard has been overseen by one woman, Mimi Nye.

There are many talented farmers making their marks on the Washington wine industry, in some cases, wine growers like Dick Boushey,  Horse Heaven's own Paul Champoux or Jim Holmes of Ciel du Cheval are as well known as some of the state's most prominent wine makers. In many instances though, some of the very hardest work being done in the industry goes unnoticed. Mimi is one of those talents, and while you may never see her name on a bottle (you can actually) her talent and enthusiasm is a vital part of the equation for Chateau Ste Michelle.

"We broke this vineyard out of sagebrush in 91, so these are my babies." Says Mimi, who appears every bit as warm and welcoming as a familiar family member the minute you meet her. She walks me through the Canoe Ridge Vineyard rows of Chardonnay. Canoe Ridge sits along the Columbia River, really, with a strong arm you could get a rock to the water, and it's thanks to that river's climate modulating influence that world class wine grapes can be grown here, in what is frankly the desert. Canoe Ridge is alarmingly sandy in places, like dunes almost, not the kind of place you'd expect anything to be growing.

Mimi started with Chateau Ste Michelle thirty three years ago. She started with no vineyard experience whatsoever, but rather studied horticulture at WSU and was growing potatoes mostly, when CSM bought her farm. Then in 1991 she was told by someone at Chateau Ste Michelle that the Canoe Ridge project, the one she was charged with cultivating was "going to be a world class vineyard." And as dubious as she was then, she's convinced today. She's also a big part of the site's success.

Mimi's familiarity with each block and her depth of knowledge come from her experience to be sure but that experience is also balanced with a real curiosity about the work that's being done nearby by CSM's red wine maker Raymon Mckee. As we walk though the Chardonnay blocks Mimi teaches me what she's learned from the winemakers, and her experience. We practice tasting the fruit for ripeness. We pluck off a few grapes and squish them in our mouths. "We're looking for a balance between acid and sugar, chew the skins, are they crunchy, or squishy? Are you tasting green apple, or peach?" We spit out the seeds looking for brown seeds, a sign of ripeness, over green. Mimi's interest in what winemakers are looking for hasn't seen her make any of her own yet. (Though she does have her own Mimi bottling of Chardonnay.) She has made jam from some of the wine grapes but has yet to see any scores from Wine Spectator for those.

For Raymon Mckee a colleague like Mimi is a valuable asset to his work and reputation of Canoe Ridge. "It's very special to work with Mimi, because she knows intricate and minute details about the Vineyard, through decades of different seasons and growing conditions.  Mimi has dedicated herself to Canoe Ridge Estate for more than 24 years, and the vines (and resulting wines) have gotten better each year because of her attention and passion."

"We continually find the small ways to make the wines better.  For example, one of our top blocks of Merlot has an area with gravel and an area with deeper sand, running perpendicular to the rows.  This results in some variability in ripening.  Mimi lets me pick out the block at two different times, to get the riper gravel bar section a week or so before the deeper sandy section of the row.  This has made the wine just a smidge better than if we picked out the row altogether.  I could not make the wine as good as it wants to be (as great as it can be), without her input, experience and help.”

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Get on the Good Fruit; McKinley Springs

The McKinley Springs wine label was launched in 2002 but the Andrews family has been growing wine grapes in the Horse Heaven Hills since 1980 and have been in the agriculture business there for nearly 70 years.  With one of the state's larger vineyards at 2,000 acres, they've planted the vineyard to twenty different grape varieties.

The Horse Heaven Hills became an American Viticultural Area (AVA) in 2005.  Over 6,000 acres of vineyards are planted on mostly silty loam soil that drains very rapidly.  The Horse Heaven Hills is also one of the warmest AVAs in the state with its average Growing Degree Days up close to 3,000 a year, trailing only the hottest site in Washington, Red Mountain and the Wahluke Slope. McKinley Springs fruit is being purchased and used by several winemakers throughout Washington state and its reputation is very good.  While most wine makers rely on the fruit as part of a blend there are quite a few single vineyard bottlings out there; Syncline makes a 2009 McKinley Springs Syrah for example.

McKinley Springs vineyard owner and manager Rob Andrews and winemaker Doug Rowell are pleased with the  "intensity, and increased level of tannins and structure" that their site adds to the wines. Both are a result of the ample warmth required for ripening as well as the wind that blows through the Horse Heaven Hills, making it the state's windiest AVA. Windy sites often produce grapes with thicker skins, which can result in more tannic structure and more intense coloration. While the fruit from McKinley Springs is ripe in tannins and color, it is not known for being overly fruit forward. As a result their fruit is often blended by winemakers to provide a critical element to the wine; what Andrews and Rowell like to call “backbone.”

The vineyard's size, warmer location, and reputation means that McKinley Springs will offer reliable fruit year after year, and that financial security along with a family focused, DIY approach to the vineyard and the winery allows them to produce the wines from their own label at a very reasonable price.  They're approaching the winemaking methodically and with intent; producing a quality wine. If there's any doubt, the McKinley Springs Cabernet has quickly developed a reputation as one of the best bargain wines in the state for that varietal.

McKinley Springs doesn't simply bottle declassified wine but rather, they select particular blocks of their vineyard and bring you a well made, very thoughtful wine experience at a bargain price.  The Cabernet, for example, is a blend of their older vines planted in 1980 as well as some youthful fruit.

The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon is a really nice example of the underlying elements of the varietal. Aromatics are nuanced with dust, baking spice and a hint of herbal notes.  The wine tastes sophisticated and delicious particularly for the $20 pricetag.  More sophistication on the palate of the wine, hints of chocolate, barrel spice and more dusty cherries.  This is far more refined and intellectual than a typical value priced Cabernet.

The 2009 Viognier is done in a sur lie style (or "on lees," meaning it was aged with sediment and yeast cells that accumulate during fermentation) in stainless steel.  The time on lees has rounded out the aromatics and tames a bit of acidity of the wine. Honey and floral aromatics give way to a similar rounded palate with a touch of orange zest backed by honey, chalk and a rounded finish. $15

These wines were provided as samples.

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