Variety: Ste. Macaire, Fer, Abouriou, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Negrette, Tannat
Location: Hood River, OR
Alcohol: 12%

This is as Burgundian as these varieties can be. In place of Cabernet’s normal darkness, extraction and resolute structure we encounter a wine that is pale, limpid and ethereal. Aromas flow from the glass unrushed and with ease. At first taste there appears to be no structure. The wine is edgeless. One expects it to be short, for the flavors to fall off, but the wine is implausibly long with inexhaustible energy through the finish.

Juice spends a full month on the skins.

Biodynamically farmed in Hood River, OR. In 2016, the vines were grafted from Syrah to a field blend of all the grapes one would have encountered in Southwestern France in the late Middle Ages: many clones of heirloom Cabernet and Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, Tannat, Abouriou, Fer, Ste. Macaire, Negrette, etc. Scorched Earth Vineyard, leased 9.83-acre site farmed by Hiyu since 2016 in the desert east of Lyle, Washington State (30 miles east of Hiyu). The site is on the banks of the Columbia River at sea level and the vines are planted in black (basalt) sand. The Fèis, a one-acre parcel, is closest to the river, where the soils are a bit deeper and have more organic matter than the pure sand or basalt cobles found in other parts of the vineyard.