Composition

AVA

Vineyard Alcohol

TA TA

pH

Harvest

Aging/oak

Cases

71% Cabernet Sauvignon23% Merlot 4% Malbec 2% Petit Verdot

Wahluke Slope

100% Northridge

16.00% 16.00%

5.9 0g/L

3.83

Between October 2 and October 21 20 months in 50% new French Oak French Oak

464

2012 Sentinel

Milbrandt Family OverviewIn 1997, we planted our first vines in the Eastern Washington AVAs of the Columbia Valley and Wahluke Slope. At first glance, Eastern Washington is not your typical wine country. It’s a remote, windswept, Washington is not your typical wine country. It’s a remote, windswept, high desert dotted with sagebrush and tumbleweeds. But our family had been farming here since the mid-1950s, and we believed the region’s moderate temperatures, low rainfall and sandy soils were ideal for grapes. Eight years later we started producing our own wines from the best vineyard blocks. Today, winemaker Joshua Maloney is handcrafting an award-winning spectrum of Milbrandt Vineyards wines handcrafting an award-winning spectrum of Milbrandt Vineyards wines from across our renowned estate vineyards.

-Butch & Jerry MilbrandtNorthridge VineyardAs with the previous vintages, wine grapes for our Sentinel come from our 92-acre Northridge Vineyard on the Wahluke Slope in Eastern Washington. The climate here is one of the warmest in the state; hot Washington. The climate here is one of the warmest in the state; hot enough during the day to fully ripen Cabernet Sauvignon, yet cool enough at night to ensure bright acids and firm tannins. The Northridge Vineyard is a south-facing site with ancient soils that rests in the foothills of the Saddle Mountain range above the floodplain from the last great ice age more than 16 thousand years ago. It is these ancient soils that give us some of our most concentrated and complex wines.

Tasting NotesTasting NotesWe created Sentinel to express the personality of a single vineyardterroir. Sentinel showcases the unique climate, topography and geology of one of Washington’s marquee Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards, Northridge Vineyard. A blend of Bordeaux varieties, it is dark, and ripe with aromas of black currant, black cherry, plums, cloves, wet stone, with aromas of black currant, black cherry, plums, cloves, wet stone, with hints of licorice and cedar. This is a full-bodied wine with a rich entry, that builds through a dense chewy yet seemless midpalate, followed by a long finish with prounounced black fruit and minerality.

Words from the Winemaker“The 2012 Sentinel marks the first vintage of a new focus in winemaking for Milbrandt Vineyards. Each lot that went into this blend winemaking for Milbrandt Vineyards. Each lot that went into this blend underwent a slow, gentle fermentation that lasted at least 30 days on the skins, which produced wines of great depth and complexity with refined yet ample tannins. The lots were aged separately for about a year in a mix of new French oak and older, neutral barrels. The firsttime they were racked off their lees was about a year after fermentation, time they were racked off their lees was about a year after fermentation, when the wine was blended. The wine stayed there for about another year, until it was carefully racked off the remaining lees, then bottled unfined and unfiltered.” -Joshua Maloney