Cote Bonneville 2005 Carriage House Red Wine

*Bottle #60: Cote Bonneville 2005 Carriage House DuBrul Vineyard Red Wine

*Price Tag: $54
*Running Tab: $772 (The boy bought...)

Considering Cote Bonneville is one of the highest-rated (94 points from Wine Spectator), estate-grown (DuBrul Vineyard is one of the most prestigious and older vineyards in the state) and premium Merlot producers around, one would think they'd have a better/functioning Web site.

Side note - I seem to really like using parentheses in this blog (obviously).

To compensate for the bad Web-marketing, this is what I picture happening... Cote Bonneville decided: "Hey! We don't make enough money from our $120 critically acclaimed and more often than not sold out Cab/Merlot, let's make a second label!"

Basically, give or take a few words.

After much annoying Googling, I couldn't find squat on these guys. Thank goodness Seattle Magazine just did a blurb on them - yes, they received "Most Outstanding Wine of the Year" for the previously mentioned blend. That and the previously mentioned crazy good estate vineyard of theirs in Yakima Valley, resting right above the Yakima River, just received "Vineyard of the Year" as well.

Woodward Canyon and Own Roe are a few to name that battle it out for the right to purchase fruit from this vineyard. They probably produce pretty good grapes there, even for the likes of this $54 second label "table wine." Yowza.

73% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Merlot and 1% Cabernet Franc for good measure, the Carriage House Red Wine produces a nose full of dark, lush fruit, rich with plum and dark raspberry protruding after some time with cloves and pepper sticking out all the way through.

Thick and juicy on the palate, with that chewy dark raspberry and almost a leathery, complex touch on the tongue. Beautifully structured, with multi-faceted levels and details that open up over time, this will be an amazing bottle of wine with another two years or so in the bottle. Rounded yet assertive tannins allow for a lengthy finish.

Those tannins are the kind that I love. The kind that you first think are wussy and then after you've taken a couple sips, they come back and kick you in the back of the head. It's like I'm the fourth grade bully and the tannins are some skinny kid I've been picking on who, low and behold, is stealthily aggressive and kicks my ass when my back is turned.

That never happened to me. But this wine did. And I liked it. All $56 worth of it.

Score: 9.