Vineyards planted outside the tiny Eastern Oregon town of Echo provided the grapes for Hood River winemaker Rich Cushman’s latest Cabernet Sauvignon on behalf of the Bickford family. Sited above the Umatilla River, Echo West Vineyard falls into the Columbia Valley AVA, which may be confusing to wine lovers on the west side of the Cascades. There’s nothing misleading about the result, which offers up aromatics of violets, black cherries, blueberries and a whiff of tobacco. On the palate, the black cherries dominate, bulwarked with blueberry and black currant and carefully managed tannins. This earned a gold medal at the 2016 Cascadia Wine Competition for Wine Press Northwest magazine’s reigning Oregon Winery of the Year.
Rating: Outstanding!
Production: 90 cases
Alcohol: 14.3%
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