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Our Wine Varietals

Introduction to Sunken Cellars’ Wine Varietals

Sunken Cellars’ Founder and Chief Innovator, Patrick Palace had a dream: to make amazing wine from grapes grown in the Horse Heaven Hills appellation to match the Pacific Northwest’s wide variety of sustainable local fare. Moreover, a dream of creating wine made to romance the abundant Pacific Northwest seafood from the Pacific Ocean and the frigid waters of Puget Sound.  Patrick started with this question: “If a perfectly dry white was made for seafood, aged in the cold waters of the Northwest and bottled straight from the briny oyster beds where it slept, how amazing would that be??”  Thus, the journey of Sunken Cellars began.

Albariño

Patrick didn’t just want to craft any wine to pair with seafood, he wanted to find something uncommon to work with. Eventually, he settled on a Mediterranean, sea-spray loving Spanish coastal varietal of Albariño. In Spain this wine is beloved.  And in America?  Well, it’s hardly known.  Sad, but yet an opportunity to make something special, unique, rare, and, honestly, simple, fresh, crisp, and amazing.  It serendipitously happened that one of the first people Patrick worked with as he started Sunken Cellars, had brought some of the first plantings of Albariño over from Spain to plant them here in Washington. Patrick set out enthusiastically to obtain this original old-vine block of Albariño to create the maiden crush of Sunken Cellars Albariño.  By Spring, Sunken Cellars had produced its first Albariño designed to pair perfectly with the seafood harvest of the PNW, and it worked…perfectly.

The first harvest led to the yearly crafting of a dry, crisp white with flavors of passionfruit, honey, and pineapple.  With a little “downtime” it pairs beautifully with local favorites like planked King salmon, scallops, oysters on the half shell, black cod and just about anything pulled from the sea.

Buy Our Albariño Now

Cabernet

The greatest challenge:  Creating a cab like no-other.  Our secret: patiently aging Single Block 100% Horse Heaven Hills Cabernet for 2 full years in 100% new French oak barrels.  And the barrels?  Each is hand-built from oak harvested from one small French forest. In this way, we secure the unique character that makes Sunken Cellars one of a kind. Using this recipe, finally, after 2 long years of waiting, the Sunken Cellars Horse Heaven Hills Cab was born.  So, if cabernet is your thing, then we have a surprise for you.

Buy Our Cabernet Reserve Now
Buy Our Cabernet Sauvignon Now

Rosé

Classic province inspired rose consisting of 60% Mourvedre and 40 % Grenache. Dry with light notes of red current, ripe raspberry, cranberry, and watermelon. Pronounced acidity gives a lingering refreshing finish.

Buy Our Sophia Rosé Now

 


It’s been said that “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”  We at Sunken Cellars have been very busy creating.  And now, the future is waiting for you to pop open. Sunken Cellars; wine made in the Northwest, for the Northwest.