2007 Seven Hills Ciel du Cheval Vineyard

The Seven Hills 2007 Ciel du Cheval – similar in make-up to the 2009 (a vintage McClellan also terms “similar”) but with more Merlot and less Petit Verdot – is also more successful than that later edition. Concentrated, sweet cassis and elderberry are mingled with sassafras, iodine, and crushed stone, while a restrained suggestion of leather and game adds interest but alerts me to the likelihood that this will best be enjoyed over the next year or so. The wine’s bitter elements are well-integrated and accompanied by a remnant of primary juiciness in a nicely persistent finish. While continuing to source from the eponymous Walla Walla vineyard that this winery’s proprietors Casey and Vicky McClellan helped plant three decades ago and that has since also become a mainstay for many others, Seven Hills the producer taps into a wide range of other fruit sources, some well-known. During a 15 year stretch making wine from Seven Hills Vineyard under this label, the McClellans and their then vineyard partners only shared its fruit with Leonetti and a couple of other wineries. After the dissolution of the original Seven Hills Vineyard partnership, the couple dropped out of winemaking for a time but retained contracts on their share of acreage, reemerging as a winery in 2003, along with a McClellan estate vineyard immediately adjacent to Seven Hills Vineyard. The house style often (at least in the reds I tasted) incorporates herbaceous elements yet at the same time tends toward almost syrupy fruit – notwithstanding Casey McClellan’s claim to be a relatively earlier picker and his wines’ modest alcohol levels – with prominent impressions of oak (often including its tannins) even though the share of new wood is typically not more than half. Some of the reds are given well over two years’ elevage, which in the case of a 2009 Red Mountain Cabernet Reserve resulted in some dulling opacity and brutal tannins. Whites – particularly Riesling – from a wide range of vineyard sources represent a significant share of Seven Hill’s production, but I can’t say that I was notably impressed by the three 2011s they showed me, the Riesling among which was a bit sweet-sour with a rather clenched green apple back end. Tel. (509) 529-7198