Justin Neufeld is the winemaker for Gilbert Cellars. On his own he works on his JB Neufeld label, focusing on Cabernet Sauvignon. We spoke with Justin when we were in Yakima in July. He sources his fruit and he played with vineyard specific bottlings for a bit, and found that by blending fruit from multiple vineyards he could bring more depth to the wine. Different vineyards have different soils and aspects and the fruit ripens differently, bringing different notes to the wine.

2015 Cabernet Sauvignon – Yakima Valley from JB Neufeld

Brooke Neufeld was kind enough to send me the vineyard breakdown for this vintage.

The vineyard compilation for 2015 was: -38% Dineen Vineyard -38% DuBrul Vineyard -17% Two Blondes Vineyard -7% Conley Vineyard.

So to break this down, DuBrul is located north of Sunnyside (in the Prosser area) so around the middle of the valley. Dineen and Two Blondes are located further west, north of Zillah and Conley Vineyard is on the far end of the valley near the city of Yakima. So you can see that these vineyards are likely to have different character notes in the fruit.

This wine is not listed on their website. The current release is the 2016. But…Brooke told me they have a case of this left at the winery…so…if you want a bottle you should act quickly!

The Tasting

This wine is smoother than expected. Tannins hit your gums but smooth quickly, leaving a bit of a buzz in your mouth. The wine feel cool and lifts on the palate. Red fruit dominates up front with cranberry, red currant and pomegranite. A set of tasting notes I came across mentioned blackberry, basil and fennel on the nose, and I get all that if I breath deeply.

This wine sits at 14.7%. Yep, it sounds big, but it is smooth. While I don’t know the price on this from the winery (you’ll have to call and ask Brooke) the 2016 vintage will set you back $35.

The Pairing

So with those thoughts of fennel and basil, I whipped up a salad of fresh shaved fennel, basil, olive oil, fresh orange juice, salt, pepper and orange zest. Heaven! We had Steak and Stout pies with this and it was lovely. With bleu cheese? Divine, as well as with blackberries and dark chocolate.

We will have more on our visit with Justin coming soon. In the meantime, you can check out the highlights of our visit in The Scenic Route – Part 4 Naches Heights and the Yakima Valley

On to Day 6 – Our halfway point!

Come back tomorrow! We will reveal another great wine as we slide into our half way point on our 12 Days of Wine!

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