2017 aMaurice Cellars Night Owl Estate Red Blend Walla Walla Valley 750 ml

àMaurice Cellars has been on a winemaking tear. They’ve landed on the Wine & Spirits Top 100 Wineries list four times in the last seven years (most recently in 2020), and they’ve done so on the back of their prodigious winemaker and their spectacular Bordeaux-style blends.

In the 2017 Night Owl, Winemaker Anna Schafer—the youngest-ever winner of Seattle Magazine’s “Top New Winemaker” award who spent two harvests at Paul Hobbs’ Viña Cobos in Argentina—has bottled Right Bank richness balanced perfectly with Washington Merlot’s unique vibrancy. Jeb Dunnuck lauded this wine as “Pomerol-like,” boasting “beautiful tannins and considerable elegance,” while Vinous praised its “lovely restraint and savory minerality.”

Broad-shouldered yet contemplative, the estate-grown Night Owl weaves a tapestry of boysenberry, plum, espresso, and dark spice on the nose, enchanting aromatic depths that brilliantly complement its powerful structure, plush tannins, and long finish. Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate notes àMaurice “continues to ratchet up the quality” on their “distinctive, elegant and classically structured” wines. The 2017 Night Owl is one of their best yet, a convincing testament to Walla Walla’s status as a premier spot for generous reds, among the best in the world. 

The àMaurice estate vineyard resides on one of the valley’s most desirable mountain locales. Perched at an elevation of 1,475 feet in the valley of Mill Creek, its vines are high enough to avoid frosts that threaten other parts of the region, but still enjoy the deep, well-draining, silt-loam soils deposited by ice age floods thousands of years ago. 

The Mill Creek Valley has a unique cyclical air flow that helps regulate the vineyard’s temperature. As the daytime sun heats the lower Walla Walla valley, it sends warmer air into Mill Creek. And as the sun sets, cooler air descends from the mountains. These shifts imbue the mountain grapes with an intricate balance between bright acidity and concentration.

The Night Owl’s 56% Merlot, 21% Cabernet Franc, 16% Petit Verdot, and 7% Cabernet Sauvignon show off a rich collaboration of the estate’s grapes. After aging for 24 months in 40% new French oak, it has emerged with countless complexities to explore.