BA·SALT /bəˈsôlt,ˈbaˌsôlt/ noun
A dark, fine-grained volcanic rock that sometimes displays a columnar structure.
At Cascadia Liquor, we are honoured to partner with Sleight of Hand Cellars from the Walla Walla Valley in Washington State. Besides the Cascadia region connecting us, the Missoula Floods flowed from Western Canada into Eastern Washington State, creating the Basalt soils where the vineyards thrive today.
Sleight of Hand Cellars
Sleight of Hand Cellars, located in Walla Walla in the southeast corner of Washington State, was founded in 2007 by Trey Busch and Jerry and Sandy Solomon. A couple of us from Cascadia Liquor were fortunate enough to take a trip to visit Sleight of Hand Cellars in April 2024. From firsthand experience, their wines are of excellent quality, but more importantly the people are kind, hospitable, and love their music! It is true their wines are highly accolated and have been featured in Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of the Year on multiple occasions, but it is their impressive collection of over 3,000 vinyl records with turntables spinning the best tunes throughout the day in their Tasting Rooms. We were very privileged to spend the day touring their facilities while analysing multiple different barrels of wine for this incredibly special collaboration.
| After sampling 8 different single barrels and mixing a further 5 different blends, we arrived at this custom wine created specifically for Cascadia Liquor’s exclusive bottling of Basalt Red Blend 2023. |
Basalt Red Blend 2023
Helping us decide on the final blend was Co-Owner Trey Busch and Production Winemaker Keith Johnson. It was apparent to us that this particular barrel, Elenes Cabernet Sauvignon #8, was the most expressive and would be the foundation of our blend. We also loved the Blue Mountain Press Red Blend, which showcased typical Bordeaux varieties, and added complex red fruit and spice characteristics. After experimenting with different percentages of each, we arrived at 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc, 16% Merlot, and 4% Petit Verdot as the culmination of our exclusive Basalt Red Blend 2023. This blend was then aged in a single barrel for a further 3 months before all 288 bottles were filled in the summer of 2024.
Basalt Red Blend 2023 is a typical Bordeaux, or Meritage, red blend with notes of blueberry, cassis, and dark cherry. The wine is balanced, medium-bodied, and soft with subtle licorice and spice elements. For the perfect pairing, please accompany with a delicious rack of lamb, or as a wonderful addition to any BBQ. We cannot wait to share this special and unique red blend with everyone as we celebrate our Cascadian heritage.
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Cascadia Connection
“Cascadia”, what does that even mean? Yes, it happens to be the name of our 12 liquor stores located across Vancouver Island, but where did the name originate from? The word “Cascades” was first referenced by Scottish botanist David Douglas in 1825 as he wrote about our area’s cascading waterfalls. Although we don’t see the name “Cascadia” used until 1890, when the town of Cascadia in Oregon was founded. Nowadays Cascadia is defined as the bioregion of the Pacific Northwest and encompasses as far north as Alaska. It is amazing to think the Cascadia bioregion connects British Columbia with the west coast of the United States through shared climate, landforms, geology, watersheds, plants, animals, and soils.
Speaking of shared soils, at the end of the last ice age glacial floods would flow from BC and Alberta down through the Columbia River Gorge in eastern Washington State before draining out in western Oregon. The Missoula floods would continuously occur for 2,000 years between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. These floods brought different soil compositions due to massive erosions which had cut through basalt deposits. In the end this dark, fine-grained volcanic rock named “Basalt” connects us in British Columbia with where this single barrel of wine was grown in the Columbia Valley of Washington State. These vines thrive in the basalt soils of Washington State, although it all originated in British Columbia, but most significantly this wine is a true representation of Cascadia.
