Cinq Cellars

So, maybe there is such a thing as Karma, or at least wine-​related Karma, because a couple of weeks ago the partner came home from a charity auction with a case (yes, a case) of wine he won at the festivities. To add a touch of mystery to the celebratory mood we found ourselves in (what’s not to love about a free case of wine, after all), every last one of the 12 bottles was from a winery we hadn’t heard of – Cinq Cellars. The case was a nice assortment of reds, whites and a rosé, about six different wines total, so we couldn’t just pop a single cork to figure out if we wanted to drink, stow or (in extremis) give the stuff away. A dilemma indeed, to which we decided the only solution was a tasting junket to the winery that was located, as luck would have it, just across the pond in Redmond. Getting to Cinq Cellars turned out to be more of a challenge than we had anticipated as, first, it’s tucked away in a fairly remote (but beautiful) part of R-​town, on the premises, in fact, of a bed and breakfast (the Meritage Meadows Inn, to be precise, whose owners are visionaries for realizing that every b&b should have its own winery). Second, the tasting room is only open one weekend or so per month. Undaunted, we headed out on a rainy Saturday in November and found the tasting room manned by two of the five fellas that partnered to make the wine.
Like I said, they make a number of wines across the color spectrum, and we were able to taste everything that was in our case plus a couple of vertical tastings. Diversity isn’t the enemy of quality here, with all of the whites and the rosé making a solid showing with a couple of special nods going toward the Viognier and their (truly) dry Riesling. It was the reds, though, that really stood out with a very nice Syrah-​driven Rhôné style blend (The Storm) and an equally impressive Bordeaux number that only slightly favors Cab Sauv over Merlot (The Professors). That last wine is named in homage of a group of UDub professors who started making wine in Washington during the 60’s and who took the first steps toward putting the Evergreen State on the wine map. The owners/​winemakers at Cinq were a fountain of information about the Profs and the early Washington wine industry. Personally, I couldn’t get enough of it as it really doesn’t get too much better than listening to someone drop knowledge while you sip the grape.
Bottom line: Though I wish they were open more often, I won’t let that or their remoteness keep me from heading out there again, and neither should you let that keep you from heading out there the first time.