Owen Roe Cabernet Sauvignon Dubrul Vineyard 06

Opens with aromas of caramel-inflected rich, dark cherries, ground cinnamon, and barrel toast that usher in a concentrated palate of plush, dark currants, black cherries, and blackberries. Savory notes of vanilla bean, barrel spice, dried sage leaf and mint come together with sappy fruit, fine tannin, and Dubrul Vineyard earthiness on the finish, exuding power. Best to cellar this for another couple years, then drink over the next decade.

Washington State's Dubrul Vineyard, rehabilitated and made famous by David O'Reilly of Owen Roe, is the source for this distinguished wine. Owen Roe's Dubrul Vineyard wines are the winery's most precious, powerful, intense, and age well into the next decade. The Owen Roe Dubrul Cab has earned a spot on the Northwest's mantel for best Cabernets. Wine Spectator gave the 2003 vintage 94 points, The 2004 93 points, and the 2005 vintage 95 points.

Previous vintage, 2005 tasting notes:

Owen Roe Dubrul Cabernet Sauvignon 05 - Wine Spectator 95 points: "Rich, ripe, supple and distinctive for the green olive and savory, tarry notes swirling around the generous core of black cherry, black currant, and licorice flavors. A big wine that caresses. Drink now through 2017. - H.S."

A colossal Cab! Creamy aromas of black cherry, cassis, graphite, and signature Owen Roe barrel toast. Beautifully plush and juicy black cherry, black currant, and black plum flavors are at once hefty and svelte, providing a silk suit coat to the integrated tannins. Loads of sweet fruit--with a blueberry note coming out-- mingles with a sappy, dark caramel spice note on the powerful finish.

MORE INFORMATION

2004 Vintage Tasting Notes

Wine Spectator 93 points

An Avalon Big Reds Club Selection shipped December 2006

Hugh and Kathy Shields own the DuBrul Vineyard, located in northwest Yakima Valley on a small outcropping in the Rattlesnake Hills. The vineyard sits at around 1375 feet, several hundred feet above the Yakima River Valley floor. This fascinating area was carved out by cataclysmic flooding from glacial Lake Missoula. There are areas with lunar-like exposed basalt rock and rock deposits with imbedded shells from the lake bottom mixed with sedimentary soils and volcanic ash.

The vineyard ripens its fruit with high sugars and flavors. Unlike warmer areas in Washington, it also retains marvelous acidity, a harbinger of age worthiness.

The wines Owen Roe makes from the Dubrul Vineyard are the winery's most precious and are powerful, super-intense, and should age well into the next decade.

2003 Vintage Tasting Notes

Wine Spectator 94 points

Try Owen Roe's Yakima Red if you liked this Dubrul Cab. The Yakima is a blend of Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot from the Dubrul, Slide Mountain, and Rosa Mystica Vineyards. It's one of our May Big Reds Club selections.

The 2003 Dubrul Cabernet Sauvignon was a Selection of Avalon's Big Reds Club. As was the Owen Roe Cabernet Franc Rosa Mystica Block 04 (Wine Spectator 91 points).

Over the years we've sent many vintages of Owen Roe's best wines to the club, as well as offering the most comprehensive selection of their wines available on the web.

The Dubrul Cab is Owen Roe's most sought after wine and one of Oregon's most highly coveted bottlings. About 600 cases made from a small vineyard high up on the north side of the Yakima Valley where extreme heat and cold stress the grapes and produce small amounts of intensely concentrated fruit.

Here's what Harvey Steiman of Wine Spectator says about the Owen Roe Merlot (one of David O'Reilly's high end wines:

"Few winemakers in the Pacific Northwest get such intensity and heady richness into their wines as does David O'Reilly. He consults with a number of Oregon's avant-garde wineries, including Abacela, Carabella and Starr, and he makes his own Pacific Northwest wines under three different labels: O'Reilly (for negociant wines), Sineann (a partnership with Peter Rossbeck) and Owen Roe, for tiny lots of intense wine."