2009 Leonetti Walla Walla Reserve

Lastly, I was also able to taste a bottle of the 2009 Reserve, which now, ten years after the vintage, is just starting to show some secondary notes. Based on 92% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8% Merlot, its still youthful ruby/plum color is followed by notes of blackcurrants, toasted spice, graphite, unsmoked tobacco, and cedarwood. Rich, full-bodied, and still structured on the palate, it’s beautifully balanced, with plenty of fruit and a great finish. It’s solidly in the early stages of full maturity, where it’s going to remain for another 10-15 years, and then have a gradual decline. It’s a beautiful wine from Leonetti and a testament to the longevity of the wines from this region. Located in Walla Walla and made by Chris Figgins, Leonetti Cellars is one of the benchmark estates in Washington. They produce a bevy of Bordeaux blends, with their Cabernet Sauvignon and Reserve functioning as the flagship wines. They also make a tiny amount of their single vineyard releases, all of which showed brilliantly for this report. Unquestionably, these 2017s are up with the crème de la crème of the vintage. While the 2017 vintage is generally forward and approachable, that’s not the case here and these wines are going to benefit from bottle age.

The wine known simply as Leonetti 2009 Reserve is, in fact, 92% Cabernet Sauvignon (the rest Merlot), a major departure from the norm of two-thirds to three quarters established in its previous eleven vintages (other exceptions being 2000 and 2001 when the Cabernet share dipped to less than half). Interestingly, too, Petit Verdot vines have contributed a significant share of each earlier Reserve bottling since their first crop, 2000, but this year dropped out on account of having been hit by the late frost. While at 14.7% virtually identical in alcohol to the corresponding Cabernet Sauvignon bottling, this 2009 Reserve comes off as significantly fuller-bodied. It also misses the vibrancy of its ostensibly lesser sibling. "For the reserve," notes Chris Figgins, "we look for lots that are more backward and brooding," and he certainly was rewarded this year. Ripe, lightly-confitured cassis and mulberry are mingled with toasted nuts, peat, and dark Burley tobacco. High-toned suggestions of camphor, mint, and gentian distillate emerge with aeration. The amplitude and sheer fruit intensity here comes along with a palpable if well-coated tannic undergirding; and the finish splendidly soothes and sustains. The longer this was open to the air, the greater its appeal; and I'm only sorry I could not follow it for a second day. Look for at least 15 years of profound pleasure not to mention persistent contrast with the corresponding Cabernet bottling. Just shy of two decades on in the history of Walla Walla's first bonded winery and one of Washington State's greatest vinous success stories, pioneer Gary Figgins and his son Chris (who had just gotten his horticultural degree and joined the family business) embarked on a path of re-directing, indeed re-creating Leonetti Cellars as an estate bottler and farmer of the local terroir. In the summer of 1996, the Figginses became partners in the emerging Seven Hills Vineyard south of Walla Walla. The following winter, severe frost drastically cut their supply of fruit from established Yakima Valley vineyards, encouraging a decision to invest in sites of their own nearer home. Chris Figgins chose the spot that the following year became Mill Creek Upland Vineyard - then the rare instance of a family wheat farm for sale, and at a price that raised not just locals' eyebrows but ire; and in 2002 Loess Vineyard was planted 17 miles away and adjacent to the winery, with lay-out and clonal diversity predicated on the family's by then extensive experience at Seven Hills and Upland. (For an account of Chris Figgins's next expansionary step, see my coverage of Figgins Family Wine Estates in this report.) These three Leonetti estate vineyards offer a vivid example of Walla Walla microclimatic diversity (and that's without even venturing across the line into Oregon and the cobbles of Milton-Freewater or the as yet largely undeveloped higher Blue Mountain foothills), which make for a typically month-long harvest, not to mention for a corresponding diversity of raw materials from which to achieve wines of balance and complexity or - if desired - site-specificity. (Figgins gave me a chance in March to sample unblended lots from barrel that confirmed the striking differences of personality accruing to each site.) The younger Figgins officially took over as winemaker from his father in 2006, and even a very occasional taster of Leonetti wines - as I was until this year - could not fail to detect a change in style over the past decade, one Chris Figgins is quite willing to directly address. "In the '90s, I'd say my dad made Michel Rolland wines before Michel Rolland (influenced Washington winemaking). People loved them. Here was something that was so ripe, so evolved, so in-your-face. Honestly, that's kind of what initially made the name of Leonetti to (the point of) a cult-like status were these wines that drank great out of the gate. When I gradually took over, I said 'Look, we're doing all this stuff in our vineyard. I don't want to be a style-driven winemaker; I want to be vineyard-driven." American oak is now down to a tiny fraction of our cellar. We've gone from 100+% new oak to 70-75% on the Cabernet, and even then I'm looking for coopers whose barrels are super-fruit-respectful.- Extraction has become less aggressive as well. "It was nerve-wracking making the adjustment" in style, he confesses. Not only that, Figgins explains, "I've changed my agricultural paradigm, composting in a big way and trying to build a complete, enclosed system where nothing - no stems, no seeds - leave the facility." (Figgins's form of so-called thermophilic aerobic composting is taken to a scientific degree of attentiveness and rigor.) Extensive berms of wild flowers; encouragement of predators; minimizing of sprays; tough viticultural love but a compromise between control and sprawl in pruning and training - all are designed to build a healthy, low-level tolerance in the vine for pests, diseases, and heat spikes. Tel. (509) 525-1428