Roughly two-thirds Cabernet Sauvignon blended with Cabernet Franc and Merlot as well as 4% each of Malbec and Petit Verdot, the L’Ecole 2009 Perigee Estate Seven Hills Vineyard – a bottling inaugurated in 2002 – brims with cherry liqueur and licorice. Roasted red meats, blond tobacco and salted caramel deliver fine savor on an admittedly rather chewy palate. The finish persists sweetly and with slightly cooked-fruit character. I would suggest enjoying this over the next 4-5 years. Celebrating three decades this year, L’Ecole 41 is under the direction of Megan and Marty Clubb – founders Jean and Baker Ferguson’s daughter and son-in-law – who met while at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and left consulting and management careers in 1989 to take over the family winery. The Ferguson’s brought prior viticultural experience to their winery, even though it was only the third to open in Walla Walla, and the next generation, in 1993, brought L’Ecole into partnership with Seven Hills Vineyard, even as they became the first winery to crush fruit from Pepper Bridge Vineyard. A recently planted second estate vineyard, Ferguson Ridge, is one of the so-called SeVein properties above Seven Hills. Beyond these sites, L’Ecole taps into many others, most well-known, ranging all across eastern Washington. (L’Ecole’s 2011 whites had only recently been bottled when I tasted the 2010s last July, and I did not have a chance last year to make good on that omission.) Tel. (509) 525-0940