Paul Gregutt - Best Wines of the Year

Paul Gregutt, the former wine critic for Wine Enthusiast, has been reviewing Pacific NW wines for over 35 years. He recently published his list of the best wines of the year, which includes our 2020 Feather Cabernet Sauvignon.

"I generally don’t have much good to say about wine scores, but there is one person whose scores I trust completely. That would be me.

Not that I’m always right, nor do I always hit a bullseye, but I spend days – not minutes – tasting recommended wines. I taste under tightly controlled conditions, at home, with carefully selected stemware and no distractions. I frequently revisit older wines, make new notes and then look back at my original scores and reviews to see how those scores and predictions have held up over time. With that in mind I’m comfortable offering you this pre-holiday list of the very best wines I’ve tasted so far in 2023.

I don’t pretend to compete with global lists compiled by well-staffed magazines and websites that pull results from 20,000 or more bottles. On the other hand, I’m tasting a curated selection of Pacific Northwest wines that often fly under the radar of the national reviewers. The goal is to give you a quick handle on the wines – and wineries – that are hitting home runs here in the Pacific Northwest."

Long Shadows 2020 Feather Cabernet Sauvignon – This is simply stunning, a Vegas-style display of fruits and flowers, spices and barrel toast. Somehow it is silky, savory, textured and lush all at once. The flavors run through a long finish like threads in a shawl, and trying to untangle them is an impossible challenge. This wine is inescapably delicious, beautifully focused, and surely destined to be long lived. 3985 cases; 14.9%; $75 (Columbia Valley) 96/100"

Read his full article and list of recommended wines here.