After rendering five vintages from one of Christophe Baron’s original Cayuse blocks in the stones of Milton-Freewater (south of Walla Walla and over the Oregon border), with his 2009 Rediviva of the Stones, Caleb Foster unveils the fruit of his own nearby plantings of (dominant) Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. The fruit was largely fermented with its stems; then went into a mixture of demi-muids and 5-10 year old barriques featuring extended lees contact. Believe me, the “animal” aspects I found missing from recent installments of Foster’s Phinny Hill blend are in this Walla Walla bottling with a vengeance! Not just the scents of an abattoir and of well-hung game, but also suggestions of bacon fat and urchin roe set me salivating, and a surprisingly polished as well as brightly juicy palate – brimming with fresh raspberry and cherry – only enhances the allure. Hints of smoky black tea as well as rose petals waft over the entire performance – which when combined with the smoked meat notes give an impression as though co-fermented with Gewurztraminer. There is a lovely sense of lift to this and a lingering, mouthwatering finish. Look for at least 4-5 year’s fascination and delight.
Buty is the project, begun in 2000, of Zelma Long protegee and veteran Washington winemaker Caleb Foster with his wife Nina Buty Foster. While their only public facility is located in Walla Walla and they recently bottled the first wine from their estate on the famously cobbled nearby soils of Milton-Freewater (a project on which Foster’s viticultural go-to guy, Phil Freese, consulted), most of their fruit is sourced from farther west, for red wine notably from the Beightol family’s impressive and manifestly impeccably-farmed Phinny Hill Vineyard whose slopes overlook the immediately adjacent and much more famous Champoux Vineyard that Dick Beightol helped plant and managed in its years as part of the surrounding Mercer Ranch. Foster, incidentally, reports very seldom adding tartaric acid to any of his musts, white or red; yet brightness and juiciness characterize most of the wines I tasted on my first visit with him. For reds – portions of which ferment in wooden uprights – he utilizes various means of extraction, including air-injection. Beast represents a parallel label to Buty (hence the prefacing of those wines descriptions with “Beast;” but reference to Buty does not appear on their labels.).
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