Red Mountain 2020: Vintage review and top wines tasted

QUICK LINK Washington State 2020: full vintage report and top-scoring wines

Red Mountain is Washington’s hottest-growing region. Perched above the Yakima River, it is a nesting doll of sorts, found both within the Yakima Valley and larger Columbia Valley AVAs. In 2020, of the Red Mountain vineyard sites I tasted from, nearly all managed to escape the impact from the wildfires.

Scroll down for the top-scoring Red Mountain 2020 wines tasted

‘The vintage actually began in October 2019,’ explained Ben Smith of Cadence. ‘There was a series of frost events that caused wood damage in young vines and bud damage in older plantings. As a result, yields were low to moderate.

‘The growing season progressed rapidly, with warm temperatures through bud break, flowering and fruit set,’ said Smith. ‘July and August continued quite hot, with the first real break occurring around 15 September, when temperatures dropped to the mid- to high-20°Cs. This gave winegrowers who prefer higher ripeness levels a little more hang time. We began harvesting Merlot on 3 September and completed harvest on 18 September with Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon.

‘During harvest, wildfires in the Cascades generated smoke that settled into the Columbia Valley,’ added Smith. ‘This caused smoke taint issues in some but definitely not all vineyards. Cara Mia was completely unaffected by smoke.

‘While there were winemakers who wrote off their production from the entire state, many wineries and vineyards produced perfectly sound, unaffected wine.’

Jason Gorski, director of winemaking at Delille Cellars said that, overall, 2020 should be considered a warm vintage in Red Mountain. He repeated Smith’s assessment of the growing season, saying that the warm temperatures ‘kept us very busy for the early season’.

‘Then the smoke moved in, blocking sugar accumulation in the grapes, so [growing] had a brief pause until conditions improved,’ Gorski continued.

‘Typical Washington State weather set in around mid-September with moderate temperatures and welcome, large diurnal swings. By the time an earlier-than-normal frost showed up in the long-term forecast, we had already harvested all of our grapes. The only blocks affected were those we had left hanging for a late harvest.’

Red Mountain 2020: The top-performing producers

• Cadence
• Delille Cellars
• Liminal
• Quilceda Creek
  

Red Mountain 2020: The top 10 wines tasted

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