Spicy and juicy, the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Wautoma Springs Vineyard is open-knit with a mineral-laced and floral essence and shows black and dark red fruit tones. Medium to full-bodied, the wine is balanced, delightful and spicy, offering a fine, mineral tension followed by succulent flavors of dark cherries and black plums that sway with elements of potpourri over the long, juicy and firm finish. It’s a delightful, food-friendly wine that is expressive and pure. Give it a try.

Another high-quality release is the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Wautoma Springs Vineyard. Like the straight reserve, it incorporates 5% Merlot, but sees less new oak, spending 18 months in a combination of new and once used French oak barrels. It has lots of dark, chocolaty fruit, tobacco leaf, truffle and damp earth characteristics, medium to full-bodied richness and a polished, elegant, balanced feel on the palate. It will have 10-15 years or longevity.

As to the reds I was able to taste, which both represent awesome value, the 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Wautoma Spring Vineyard Reserve is 100% Cabernet that comes from the loam and rocky soils of the Wautoma Spring Vineyard. Aged 18 months in 60% new French oak, it is a big, rich effort that’s loaded with notions of cassis, black raspberry, graphite, chocolate and damp earth on both the nose and palate. A full-bodied, rich and weighty effort, it has rock star purity of fruit, a mouth-coating texture and enough ripe tannin to keep it drinking nicely for over a decade. Impressive and well worth checking out. Drink now-2022. www.columbia-crest.com

From a site adjacent to Cold Creek, Columbia Crest's 100% varietal 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Wautoma Springs Vineyard Reserve features a delightfully pungent and savory meld of blond tobacco, powdered ginger, creme de cassis, candied cherry and salted caramel. There is a bit of heat and tannic roughness here but is well-enough integrated, and the combination of spice and (despite far-gone ripeness) energy in the finish is admirable. This should be worth following for several years. Columbia Crest is a 2.5 million-case outgrowth of behemoth Ste Michelle, sharing fruit from Cold Creek, and based amid enormous riverside acreage not far from Ste Michelle's Canoe Ridge Three decades old, this winery is dedicated to a very distinctive style of wines that are treated according to a different methodology, inter alia involving assemblage prior to barreling down to do malo, and in the reserve wines the completion of primary fermentation in barrel. A native of Mendoza, Juan Munoz Oca joined the team here in 2003 and became head winemaker in 2011. His long-time predecessor in that position and only the second to hold it, Ray Einberger - now officially Winemaker Emeritus - thus had final say in the making of many of those wines I tasted on this occasion. "I'll be happy," notes Oca modestly but displaying confidence, "if at the end of my tenure nothing has dramatically changed in how people look at Columbia Crest." The winery portfolio is broken into three distinct groups: a so-called Grand Estates tier of inexpensive Chardonnay, Cabernet, and Merlot based on fruit from the Horse Heaven Hills and Wahluke Slope; an -H3- label based on fruit of those same three varieties from Alder Ridge, McKinley Springs, and Coyote Canyon in the Horse Heaven Hills; and a reserve tier featuring various blends that receive long elevage in all or nearly-all new barrels. Confitured fruit and prominent caramelized resin from (a hundred thousand!) barrels - even the inexpensive Cabernet gets one-third new wood, both French and American - are common denominators for most of the wines I tasted, and I am sure there are tasters for whom the styles here - especially in the reserve tier - will hold greater appeal than they did for me. And I could only recommend, modestly, a few of the whites I tasted. Even so, there are some imposing results in the entire Columbia Crest line-up, including some remarkable values.Tel. (509) 875-2061

The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Wautoma Springs Vineyard (300 cases produced) is the debut vintage for this cuvee. The vineyard is located in the heart of the Cold Creek area of the Columbia Valley. The wine was aged in a mix of new French and American oak for 18 months. Purple-colored, it exhibits an enticing nose of pain grille, pencil lead, violets, earth notes, black currant, and blackberry. This is followed by a medium-bodied, rich, savory Cabernet with excellent grip, balance, and length. It has the stuffing to evolve for several years and will offer a drinking window extending from 2012 to 2021. Columbia Crest, owned by Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, has long been known for the quality of its value-priced wines. The current collection will only enhance the winery’s reputation. Columbia Crest is usually thought of as a producer of value-priced wines selling for under $20. However, their upper-level, limited-production wines merit serious attention as they, too, are value-priced compared to the competition Tel. (509) 875-2061; www.columbia-crest.com