Gård Columbia Valley Red Blend 3-Pack
$59.99 $123.00 51% off List Price
2013 Vaucluse Red Blend, Columbia Valley
First time I’ve hit the buy button in months and no shipments to NC. 
Hey Woot friends, thanks for including Gard’s 2013 Vaucluse in the fun today.
This wine is a fabulous, big, savory Washington Syrah blend, estate grown of course, that has received numerous accolades recently (91pts Wine Enthusiast; 90pts, Wine Spectator; Best in Show/Gold, Sunset Magazine).
I’ll be checking in today - let me know if you have any questions.
Wahoo, I’m a rat! Thanks for the golden ticket woot. I don’t have a lot of experience with formal wine reviews, but here are my tasting notes.
A few minutes after opening, dominated by un-ripe raspberry. Very tart and harsh.
Ran through a venturi and it’s more drinkable, but still dominated by un-ripe fruit.
Finished glass with potato and bacon chowder. Much better with food. It cut through the fatty/smokey bacon flavors of the soup and complimented nicely.
Had a second glass a couple of hours later. I found it much more enjoyable by itself with the additional time to open up. Tart fruit flavors have ripened and there is now a sweetness in the aftertaste that I didn’t pickup before.
The wife enjoyed it as well, had the same harsh response at first but commented on how it came off with a touch of sweetness a couple hours later. Seems to us that this wine could use a bit of time to age or a lot of time to breath after opening.
I tend to frequent wine.woot mostly for the Wellington and Pedroncelli deals, but I’ll buy this.
Thanks for the note and I also appreciate the Vintner Voicemail
Thanks for the notes.the wine sounds tasty. Gard, you have not been on WW for some time how did you arrive at the decision to offer us this particular bottle?
We love the Vaucluse and chose it for Woot to expose it to a broader audience than our normal reach. We know this group is selective and particular, and thought you’d all love it as much as we do!
Seems to be a rockin’ deal here at ~$20, CT average is $32 purchased from the producer.
Additional tech notes here from the trade section of the Gard site:
TA: 5.5 g/L
pH: 3.97
Also, some may be interested in the vineyard sources:
Block 9 Grenache Tablas Creek
Block 3 Syrah Joseph Phelps
Block 4 Syrah Tablas Creek and Sara Lee
Curious about the rather high pH and aging potential.
Any comments?
Trying to digest the rat report with the above lab numbers.
[mods: care to add to the specs?]
We anticipate this wine to easily hold up 5-10 years. Wine Spectator suggests 2017-2021 as the prime drinking window.
As for the vineyard source, Gard wines are all estate grown on the Royal Slope of the Columbia Valley AVA. Our Syrah and Grenache are sourced from our Corfu Crossing vineyard site at 1375-1550 ft elevation, south-facing slope.
All GD community tasting notes for this wine have been x-posted into cellar tracker, user names have been omitted to protect the guilty.