Cayuse Offer
Two decades ago when I was a wine director in New York, Cayuse was brand-new but it had already established a place on our list. The wines were exciting – you felt like a passenger along the ride of a pioneer discovering a new world-class terroir, all unfolding in your wine glass.
Now, I have the honor of distributing these wines in Northern California. We just tasted through the current releases -- and saved the open bottles for over a week to revisit again and again. The wines are absolutely captivating, memorable and truly world-class, on a level of "first growth" and "grand cru" status.
Perhaps this is what to expect from Christophe Baron, a pioneering vigneron who puts it all on the line in the quest for expressing his terroir -- biodynamic farming, high-density planting, sparing use of new oak and vinification with native yeasts. Each wine is a revelatory, unique expression that becomes the center of conversation.
That is, when you can get them – 85% of production is sold DTC.
Luckily, we have a sprinkling of many of the wines, providing an opportunity for great wine programs like yours to introduce guests to an unforgettable producer.
There are 18 wines now available for the fall 2024 offering. Please submit your request by this Friday, November 22 via the online request form (link below). As you know, the flagship wines are rarest of all, so please keep in mind requests will be fulfilled accordingly. We've included ratings and tasting notes to guide your selection.
Customers who purchase the wines will be invited to taste with Christophe Baron in the new year.
The wines now available include:
Cayuse, Christophe’s flagship label and an embodiment of his story as the French vigneron who foresaw the potential of Walla Walla's stone soils in the ancient alluvial fan of the Blue Mountains. When he first saw the round, tennis-ball sized stones in 1996, he drew a parallel with Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and decided there and then to be the first to plant vineyards. The stone soils are extraordinarily deep – hundreds of feet; the vines struggle for water (they grew 10 feet deep in roughly 20 years) and produce a concentrated, mineral character. He chose the name "Cayuse" in tribute to the Indian tribe of the region, with double entendre cailloux, the phonetic pronunciation of "stones" in French. The Cayuse line features Syrah from various parcels – each one distinct – and a small selection of well-matched varieties such as Grenache, Tempranillo and Bordeaux varieties.
Horsepower, Grenache and Syrah bottlings from high density vineyards cultivated by draft horses. The wines live up to their name – they are intense, bold and sophisticated with ultra- smooth tannins and a sleek style. One might be surprised that the alcohol of these wines is at most 14.1 percent, yet the better explanation for their prodigious style is vine density (from 3,555 to 4,840 vines per acre with as little as 3' x 3' spacing), biodynamic farming, and of course, the stony soils. They are truly awe-inspiring.
Hors Catégorie, a label for the single Syrah bottling made from Christophe’s ambitious Hors Catégorie vineyard. With a roughly 60 degree slope, the vineyard is the first to be planted on the precarious slope along the Walla Walla River. The name is inspired by the eponymous term in French bike racing for climbs too steep for categorization. This wine is the top of Christophe’s syrah line and is simply unforgettable.
Champagne Christophe Baron. Following the line of his ancestors who’d been Champagne growers since the 1600s, Christophe responded to his fathers beckon to continue the lineage along with his sister, and he responded by creating a line of champagne magnums made of 100% old vine Petit Meunier made from parcels on hillsides of Charly-sur-Marne, Crouttes-sur-Marne and Porteron. Christophe commissioned Claude and Lydia Bourguignon, world-renowned soil scientists, to study the parcels before defining his approach to creating his terroir-specific bottlings.