 Welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horky. Hi, I'm Shreen Thong. Welcome back to the show today. We're gonna be tasting some American wines available in the EU. These wines are brought in by 8wines.com. I'm really excited about this show because a lot of our wine geeks, wine friends, wine making friends in Europe and Europe want to taste American wines but they can't get up, right? And to this episode, we're doing wines from Washington. Washington, not California. Washington is actually the second largest producing wine state in America. Isn't that crazy? Right after California. A lot of stuff does well there. I like Washington wines. I don't know them professionally as well as some of the California wine regions but I do enjoy them. I want to let you know before we get started, this video has not been paid for or sponsored but if you do like any of these wines, if you do want to purchase them from 8wines.com, I will have a discount code at the end of the episode. Just know that we get a small commission so take that for what's worth. If you would like the wine, it's okay. Okay, let's get started. First of all, we're tasting one grape that Washington is famous for and that is Sina. We have Tenet Winery, the Pondit 2014, I believe. Let me double check, 14. This has Grenache, Mervedra, and Vione and McClure. This is a side project actually between Rhone Consultant, Rhone Producer and Chateau St. Michelle Washington, the biggest producer in Washington and get this, the biggest producer of Riesling in the world by Vione, crazy. And so Washington is the second most important wine region in U.S. and 50%, I think 60% of the vineyard grapes go to Chateau St. Michelle. Oh, wow. They own that. I mean, they produce like what, 24 million bottles every year? And Washington's Sera and Cab, which we'll taste later, is something we'll get into. Let's get into this. More of an enchi level, more of affordable type bottling. It's pitch black, as you can see. Super meaty on the nose. Whoa, I'm loving it. I was expecting like Aussie fruit bomb actually. No, actually, I think this is much more Lengui dog in style. Meaty, savory, kind of like the soy sauce component. Black fruit, pepper, meat. I am loving this. Oh, I love the tannins on this one. It's full body, it's savage. It does have some oak, even though it's all used oak. It's sorai, it's got some tight tannins. I love this wine. What do you think about this wine? I like it a lot. How high? Great intensity. How high? The tannins are really good. I score wines for Vivino, Count and Shireen doesn't, whenever she likes it, I'm like, how high do you score? How high? How high would you, I'm getting... Stop asking me the same question. I think I'm... How high would she score? 4.3, because of, I like... Really? What do you think? I think 4.2. 4.2, okay. Maybe I'm gonna go for, I'm just going for it. I don't care, I'm going for 4.3. I like Sira, I like the meatiness. I like the tannic structure. Let me get another go at this. I was so excited about this one because there's a little bit of view here. So you know, like Sira, 80% Sira. So it's kind of like roti and style. And then it's also a GSM. I have to say, this is a pretty affordable wine. And it doesn't taste forward, but this is serious wine. I think this on us, not that scores matter a ton, but I think this got 92 from Parker. So actually... I want one more sip. You want one more sip? Before we move on, nice wine. Good job, Chateau Saint-Michel. I'm very high on this wine. Actually, actually really... I think for generalizing, like the European palades would really appeal to a lot of people. I think it's, I love Sira in America because Rhone Sira's are so hard to get and they're really expensive. And California, Washington, you can't, producers basically can't give away Sira. So you're getting these outstanding Sira as people that love rump wines and a fraction of the cost. And you can get old vintages, you can get them. That's why I love Sira in California and in the US. All right, that was my little rant. Let's move on. I like that. Go for it. The next is another project of Chateau Saint-Michel. This is the Intrinsic Cabernet Sauvignon 2014. Crazy thing about this. Some of the grapes are macerated for nine months to try to add some silkiness. Also kind of an entry-level bottling. Washington does get a lot of attention for their Cabernet Sauvignon. Like you'll say, the creek, their Cabernets get 100 points. It's the most wine-planted creek in Washington. Let's give this a smell. Now automatically, this is what I love when American Cab is done, right? You get the black fruit, you get the red fruit, but you also get the capsicum nuts. I think there's a touch of Cabernet Franck in this as well, aged in the old oak. Oh my God. I wasn't so convinced on the nose, but on the palate, there's a little bit of nice florality on the finish and beautiful tenons. I'm very high on this wine again. Full bodied, not jammy, but it's starting to approach that way. Really fruit forward. There isn't a lot of oak. Really fine-grain tenons. One interesting thing is in Washington, most of the soy type is sandy loam, so they don't get phylloxera, and this are all planted on their own vines. Yeah, and they're in respect. About 99% of the grapes. This is the one wine of the six are tasted. I like a lot, but I'm not getting as excited about it, actually. It doesn't have a little, it doesn't have maybe some of the nuances and complexities I want from American Cabernet Sauvignon. I do think it's very good wine. To me, I'm about 4.1 out of five on this, on Vivino. I think it's easily, I think it's got 89.90 points or whatever from whatever publication. What do you think? I'll be straight up honest. I really adore these two wines, and I think these two are the best. These are the wines that I would personally drink among the six wines that we have shown in this series. There you go. Check out Washi. If you want to get these in the EU, I think eight wines, I can't remember the price, has a good price. I know the price is very good in the US for people that are watching in the US, right? So I'm going to put the discount code up on the screen in the description box. If you like it, check them out. You can get any of the wines from eightwines.com. Get a small discount. Anything else you want to add on Washington wines? Am I teeth purple yet? No. Yeah. So yeah, we are definitely very interested to explore more of Washington wine. You know, it's an interesting area. Nice job, Chateau Saint-Michel, on the packaging, the labels, the wine inside, good price. Anything, that was really good, really good wines. So guys, check it out. Check out eightwines.com. If you liked this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Exotic Wine Travel. I will see you next episode.