SIX ME! Alexana Gran Coeur Bordeaux Blend 2017

SIX ME! Alexana Gran Coeur Bordeaux Blend 2017

$ 179.99
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Save 40% on a SIX PACK! $29.99/bottle, $50/bottle regular!
You've read how much we love Alexana's Gran Coeur–it is one of our favorite Washington Bordeaux blends of all time! Like the 2015 and 2016 before it, we recommend it without reservation at its original price of $50. But since Alexana has phased out their Washington wine program, we're all lucky to have access to it at 40% off when you buy a 6-pack! That's $29.99/bottle.

Holy ___ we love this wine! While it's early in the game, 2016 may very well go down as the best vintage yet of Gran Coeur, and that's saying a lot. Beautiful, mesmerizing black cherry and blackberry fruit adding mocha and cedar. There's an elegance, balance and silkiness, which is evident from first sip and all the way through the buoyant finish that fans out and keeps giving. Already gushing, this is equally outstanding as a wine for your next dinner party as it is for the cellar.

A Pinot noir winery in the Dundee Hills of Oregon was hardly where we expected to find one of the best Washington Bordeaux blends we've ever tasted. We still get excited re-telling the story, as excited as winemaker Bryan Weil was when he first showed us the Washington barrels in the cellar at Alexana.

Our Gran Coeur craze began almost five years ago, when I was tasting through barrels of Pinot and Chardonnay at Alexana and Bryan mentioned a covert, soon-to-be-bottled Washington red blend he was working on.

Leaning on the connections Bryan developed while making wine in Washington, he sourced a small amount of fruit from Yakima Valley's Lonesome Spring Ranch. Bryan utilized the strengths of Alexana's winemaking facility with the Lonesome Spring fruit. "We're a Pinot winery -- we don't even have a crusher so we made each lot of Washington fruit the way we make Pinot, more pump overs and more whole berries, so there is less tannin and more purity of fruit."

Bryan has a deep connection to Washington. Dr. Revana, proprietor of Alexana, has a track record of fostering innovation. The right ingredients made the most excellent stew.

I met Bryan in Corvallis, a loooong time ago, while he was in the fermentation sciences program at OSU. After Bryan finished school, he moved to eastern Washington to take a winemaking job at Hogue Cellars, one of the state's largest wineries.

In his time at Hogue, Bryan developed tons of Washington vineyard connections. "I got to play with a lot of fruit," joked Bryan, "and being involved in the reserve program at Hogue, I really fell in love with what I was tasting from eastern Washington."

In 2012, Bryan moved back to Oregon to become Alexana's Associate Winemaker (the "Associate" has since been dropped). Alexana specializes in small-lot, premium Pinot noirs; they have perhaps the most diverse estate vineyard in the whole Willamette Valley. More to the the point, they have the secret weapon: a winemaker with pure enthusiasm for Washington wine.

"I really like the intrinsic qualities of each grape -- I love Cabernet, I love Merlot -- but I particularly love Washington blends."

Jeff Lewis, a wine educator and jack-of-all-trades with Alexana, said of Bryan's blending skills, "he understands separate parcels' personalities and how they can come together, even tiny parcels. There's an elegance and balance that I don't normally see, probably because of Bryan's Oregon experience. There are 130 lots in the cellar and only 8 are from Washington. It's really fun to have it in the cellar. If you can't find Bryan, he's in the Washington barrel room."

Bryan knows what he wants to make. "I've talked to our wine club members and customers and I know what they want. I know I want to make good wines that I want to drink with my friends and family. You can drink them young and they're age-worthy. There's just enough tannins so you know they are there."

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Our Wine Advice

Life's too short to drink bad wine.

We taste as much or more Oregon wine in a given year than anyone on the planet. We look for the needles in the haystacks, the wines you won't find in your local wine store. Wineries have long sought our help to sell their most limited, unique bottlings.

We are picky. We don't like to sell wines that we don't like to drink. When we first taste a wine, we determine if it merits further attention. If so, we taste it later that day, perhaps pour a glass that night, then re-taste it over the course of several days. We want to know how a wine will evolve, or if it'll fall apart. We want to know if it truly belongs in your cellar, in your glass, and we want to provide you with a rough idea of when it'll be showing at its best.

Our goal is to describe wines in meaningful ways that you can actually relate to. We actively battle against overly flowery tasting notes. You know the kind. The ones that mention things that no one has ever smelled or tasted. They're mostly B.S. and they perpetuate snobbery that we don't like.

We work to give you the unfiltered truth about a wineWe believe wine isn't one-size-fits-all. We get to know your tastes and preferences so that we can recommend the right wines for you.

Testimonials

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Marcus and Andy's knowledge of the wines, wineries and winemakers of the area is encyclopedic and, in my experience, second to none. They have a comprehensive understanding of the inner workings of the industry and a knack for recommending wines that are 'in my wheelhouse,' but also the insight to direct me toward new discoveries. I wholeheartedly recommend them to both those in the know and those who would
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Bob S.
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Andy and Marcus only sell wines they would drink themselves, they sell them at reasonable prices, and they take exceptionally good care of their customers. Ethics, value, service…the reasons we buy all our wine from Avalon.

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