A few days ago I was invited to attend a very special Sleight of Hand Vertical Tasting, graciously hosted by Trey Busch. The tasting commemorated Trey’s 20th year of winemaking in grand fashion, as the wines that he shared dated back to the 2000 vintage when he first began his wine journey at Dunham Cellars after the legendary late Eric Dunham. Trey explained his soiree into the world of wine, starting there and moving to Basel Cellars before starting Sleight of Hand with his business partners. We had a chance to try his Sleight of Hand ‘Archimage’ bottling which is their Right Bank style wine, starting with its non-vintage blend up to an exciting barrel sample of their 2018 Archimage Red Wine.
During the tasting a few wines in particular stood out to me. Speaking to Trey, we were both floored by the 2000 Dunham Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon (WWB, 91) which is showing marvelously right now and still has a lot of life left. Having recently tried the 2000 Col Solare that was past its prime, the 2000 Dunham Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the better wines from this vintage that I have tried over the past several years. Aromatically complex, this shows layers of pretty red fruits with shades of tar, tobacco leaf and citrus rind with lighter stony tones. The palate continues to impress with light wet stone character combining with sour red cherry and lighter wild mushroom tertiary tones. Ironically they sourced from of this wine from Cayuse’s ‘En Cerise Vineyard’ which would account for those lighter wet stone tones.This is wonderfully elegant and should be enjoyed in the near future.
Also quite impressive was the 2001 Dunham Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon (WWB, 89) which shows nice Bordelaise tones but is starting to fade a bit. Dark kirsch and tobacco and bell pepper accents mingle with shades of black licorice and damp earthy tones on the palate. This is one to enjoy now.
The wines that I was not surprised by were the thrilling 2013, ‘14 and ‘16 Archimage Red Wines which were all stunning. They have brilliant richness, tension and length. They can definitely be enjoyed now. Talking with production winemaker Keith Johnson he noted that one reason that the wines have such good length was a change in the fermentation process as well as the use of oak. I really like the way that these wines show now.
We had one somewhat major surprise of the tasting, the 2005 Basel Cellars Syrah (WWB, 92) was an impressive wine sourced mostly from the Lewis Vineyard. The smoky and savory tones really gratified as the wine carried really good weight and acidity. We were all really impressed with this special tasting which was such a treat to commemorate one of the great people in Washington wine, Trey Busch.