The Woodward Canyon 2009 Estate Reserve cuvee constitutes 43% Merlot, 28% Cabernet Franc, 15% Petit Verdot and 14% Cabernet Sauvignon, amounting to a mere 181 cases from consistently low-yielding parcels of vines averaging only around 15 years’ age, at places – unusual anywhere in the state – rooted right into basalt rock. Charred, smoky, and piquantly fruit pitted overtones of dark cherry and mulberry fruit inhabit a metaphorically dark and surprisingly weighty palate compared with what this wine’s varietal content would have led me to expect. Mott points out that in this location, Cabernet Sauvignon will sometimes add levity and flux to the Merlot rather than vice versa. Suggestions of dried herbs, brown spices, and bitter dark chocolate add interest to a sustained, rather brooding finish. While I detect scant heat, this bottling’s 16% alcohol is no doubt partly responsible for its rather chunky, almost massive palate impression. I would cellar it cautiously. Washington pioneer Rick Small – along with veteran and, since 2003, Woodward Canyon’s winemaker Kevin Mott – chose to show me only a slightly abbreviated line-up of their recent bottlings, and a good deal of time was spent discussing matters viticultural and historical, including this estate’s evolution in the 1980s, at which time I was selling their wines as a retailer and had last tasted with him. “We advanced substantially in quality,” observes Small of those early years, “because we allowed ourselves to make mistakes and to learn from them.” In addition to their estate vineyard, in Lowden, west of Walla Walla (the driest location in that A.V.A.), first planted in 1977, Woodward Canyon sources from a who’s who of established sites across south-central and eastern Washington, and is one of several winemaker-partners in Champoux Vineyard. Tel. (509) 525-4129; www.woodwardcanyon.com.