Joe DAscoli

9.4

Excellent wine but comes in 2nd in the night of our 2010 Cabernet showdown. 90 min decant and the wine was very good but was missing some of the dark fruits that make this wine pop. Paired very well with the steak — a day ago

Jan de Weerd

9.5

Concentrated, focussed fruit, deeply penetrating and revealing layers of dark flavor infused with potent tannins. Not for the ‘faint of heart’ — 20 days ago

with Tammy

Byron Hewett

9.4

Made by the new winemaking team that came over from Quilceda Creek. Absolutely gorgeous!! Best wines I have had from Washington. They are quickly moving up! — 9 months ago

Paul J

9.7

13yr Wedding Anniversary!!

This rocked. PnP. Lovely dark red color. Refined, rustic, and Bordeaux like nose with cedar and aged cherries. Same on the palate with an awesome texture. Medium depth and medium plus finish. High quality all the way! — 7 days ago

with Brooke

Joe DAscoli

9.5

Face off of the 2010 Cabernets with FirstLight Steak tenderloin. Dancing Bear comes out the winner with a touch more fruit and depth to it over the Quilceda Creek. Both wines decanted 90 mins. Smooth yet complex. — a day ago

Frank Artale

9.1

Too often this,wine is drunk at release. Just a little patience goes a long way. At 7 years the primary black and red fruit is still there with dried plums showing up along with cedar cocoa tar anise. Tannins still there so can go along a bit longer bit why wait — 3 months ago

Wulf Losee

9.6

I’m going to leave my original review up, but if you want my final review of the this wine, scroll down to the bottom.

My original rating was 9.1– Pine and a hint of leather on the nose. Currents on the front of the palate. Medium tannic structure—but not much going on on the mid palate. Ends with a lot of tart high notes on the finish. There is a pleasant mineral astringency that lingers after one swallows. I rather like that. I’m going to let this sit for a half an hour to see if the tartness of the finish mellows out a bit. There’s not much here to open up though. this is a perfectly fine wine, but it’s not QC’s best. Slightly disappointed.

Update: after being left in a decanter for an hour and a half (I got distracted) the fruit on the front and the mineral finish faded, leaving the astringency at the back of the palate with tannins that were unable to balance the bitterness. This is a wine that’s best guzzled quickly [at least if you intend to drink the wine today— see my further comments below].

Updated rating, two days later: 9.6!
Oh my! Because this wine didn’t seem very exceptional, I put the remainder in an empty plastic water bottle. I squeezed out most of the air and I capped it and left it for two days. I certainly wasn’t expecting much when I drank it tonight, But it went from OK to fantastic! Bouquet was 100 percent leather. The fruit had faded on the front, but the tannins from front to back are now intriguingly complex. Lots of earth, and mineral notes all along the palate, and the finish is longer. Yummy!

The moral is don’t bother to decant this sucker. Open the bottle, at least 24 hours before you intend to drink it, and do the French thing of pouring off half a glass and then re-corking the bottle. Truly an amazing transformation!
— a year ago

Tom Garland

9.3

1/2 hour decant(decent fine/cloudy sediment). A remarkable dark purplish magenta. On the nose: blackberry liquor, floral, smokey, baking spice, herbaceous. Taste: plush, round wine with dark fruit, graphite, iron, black pepper, cedar and a dark cherry/vanilla bean medium plus finish. YUM! — 9 days ago

with Brenda

Will Bean

9.7

Perfection! — 19 days ago

Byron Hewett

9.3

Made by the new winemaking team that came over from Quilceda Creek. A Beauty! — 9 months ago