Cassis, currants, plum skin, bloomed baking spices with a whiff of dark fruit, graphite and crème brûlée. Swirling adds some dried herbs and perfumed sweetness. This wine is dense and opulent with unfolding layers of fruit and spice. The palate is composed with dark smoldering black fruit, black tea and additional lingering spices. The texture and tannins are layered and persistent. As a flagship wine, we are thrilled with this new vintage, as we feel it’s one of our finest examples of Reserve Claret to date.
Vintage Notes
The 2018 Matthews Reserve Claret was crafted from several small vineyard parcels across four AVAs in Washington State: Columbia Valley, Red Mountain, Royal Slope and Walla Walla Valley. Farmed using sustainable practices, the vines were primarily limited to one cluster per shoot or three clusters per spur to create maximum concentration in each cluster. They were hand-harvested in the early morning between September 12th, 2018 – November 1st, 2018. Upon arriving in the winery, each cluster was hand-sorted, berry-sorted, and then fermented in either stainless steel (61%) or concrete (39%) tanks. Using only the free-run wine, it was then moved to 100% custom French oak barrels for 26 months of cellaring with over 40 individual evaluations by our winemaking team. The resulting 18 barrels were bottled, without fining or filtration, on February 2, 2021, producing only 421 cases.
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