Go ahead, feel the burn with this Cabernet Sauvignon from Columbia Valley
"The Burn" isn't just a marketing gimmick for the Borne of Fire Cabernet Sauvignon, it's a real place: the Burn of Columbia Valley, a recently recognized American Viticultural Area.
Borne of Fire Cabernet Sauvignon
Columbia Valley, Washington
$19.99
13.5% alcohol
PLCB Item #100025107
Sale price; regularly $24.99
The wine world’s appellation system, where wines are legally required to name the region where their grapes were grown, continues to evolve over time. Borne of Fire is unusual in that it has two appellations on its label. One of these, Columbia Valley, is widely recognized — a vast appellation that covers nearly all of the wine-growing areas in the state of Washington. The other, rendered here as simply the “Burn,” is so obscure that it probably reads more like a marketing gimmick on this phoenix-themed label. However, the “Burn of Columbia Valley” is in fact a recently recognized American Viticultural Area, or AVA. It is a sub-appellation that lies just upstream of the majestic Columbia Gorge, along Washington’s border with central Oregon.
Every country that produces wine has their own appellation laws organized in a hierarchy of sorts based on the concept of “terroir,” or the flavor impact of a region’s terrain, climate, and soils. One of the ideas behind appellations is that smaller named regions of grape origin tend to produce more distinctive — and therefore, higher quality — wines than ones whose components are sourced across larger geographic areas. In the United States, wine appellations are codified by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau of the Department of the Treasury, known as the TTB. Vineyard owners who believe their region makes wine that tastes notably different and better than the surrounding area can apply for its formal recognition as an AVA.
The Burn of Columbia Valley’s name refers to a small triangle of grassy benchlands that were traditionally burned annually to renew their plant life for grazing cattle. The region’s warm temperatures and high winds extend the growing season and stress its grapevines in ways that produce intensely flavored cabernet sauvignon wines like this one. Dense, dark, and brambly, the wine tastes of bing cherries and pomegranate juice. A dash of malbec in the blend deepens its color and gives the wine a faint aromatic accent that is more earthy than smoky, like the essence of oven-roasted beets in a meaty borscht.
Also available at:
Roger Wilco in Pennsauken, $19.98
Total Wine & More in Cherry Hill, $20.97
Canal’s Bottlestop in Marlton, $21.09