Dunham Cellars Trutina Columbia Valley Red 2009

Dunham Cellars Trutina Columbia Valley Red Blend 2009

Friend and Linda's sorority sister Pat R came over with friend Richard and we opened this nice pleasant but serious sipping wine with a medley of cheeses and desserts.

We discovered Dunham Cellars Cabernets on-line with Winebid.com. Having been awakened to the brand, when we saw this label at local merchant Vin Chicago, we grabbed it, tried it, liked it, and went back and bought some more. That was back with the 2009 vintage, and we then purchased the 2010 vintage when it arrived the following year.

At a price point of $25, this provides reasonable QPR - Quality-Price-Ratio when compared with equivalent quality Bordeaux Blends and Cabernets from California and Washington State.  

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate says, "This is the least expensive, yet the richest of the lineup" from Dunham Cellars.

We enjoyed this label during the Covid19 shut-in as we remained at home enjoying intimate dinners and wines from our cellar. I have joked that if such a situation occurred, we'd be stocked for up to year with wines from our cellar, and here we are, albeit hopefully for a couple weeks duration.

We hold close to a dozen vintages in a vertical collection of Dunham Cellars flagship Cabernet Sauvignon Red Wine Blend going back to the nineties. We discovered these Bordeaux varietal wines from Columbia River Valley in Washington, not well known for being a Bordeaux varietal region several years back. We stopped by the Dunham Cellars winery and tasting room during our trip to Woodinville, Washington, site of over a hundred tasting rooms of Washington State wines during our Seattle Culinary and Washington Wine Tour year before last.

We discovered this second label from Dunham at Vin Chicago when they still had their brick and mortar store in Naperville. We bought some, tried it, and went back and bought more. We still hold about a half case and are being rewarded for doing so.

This Trutina Walla Walla Red Blend from our cellar was a perfect compliment to the beef pot roast with grilled asparagus, fresh berries, roasted walnuts and artisan cheese and accompaniments dinner.

Trutina is a second label from Dunham at a lower pricepoint offers great QPR (Quality to Price ratio) in this complex and expressive red wine blend. We continue to find many of the Columbia Valley Reds have great quality and aging ability and offer great value over their French and California counterparts.

Dunham Cellars 'Trutina' Columbia Valley Red Wine 2009

Tonight, this was consistent with our earlier tasting experience which is recorded in these pages from 9/18/2018, while not as complex or polished as the flagship label, Trutina was very impressive going on a decade of age.

This showed bright garnet and inky purple color, medium full bodied with huge aromatics of floral and lavender with full forward bright vibrant flavors of black currant and black cherry fruits with a layer of vanilla and sweet caramel mocha on a full cloying lingering tannin finish.

The blend is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, 6% Syrah, and 4% Malbec.

RM 92 points.

https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=1456899 

https://unwindwine.blogspot.com/2018/09/dunham-cellars-trutina-columbia-valley.html

https://www.dunhamcellars.com/