Washington vigneron Christophe Baron is best known for his label Cayuse, which produces some of the best Rhone-style wines in the United States, but his Horsepower label is a personal project for him. His grandfather worked the family vineyard in Champagne with horses until 1957, and when Baron decided to plant high-density vineyards in the Walla Walla Valley AVA to grow Grenache and Syrah, he bought his own draft horses—big, muscular Belgians to work the narrowly spaced vines.
Baron’s first release of Horsepower was the 2011 vintage and, since then, the wines have kept getting better. Recently, he came by Wine Spectator’s Napa office for a non-blind, unofficial tasting of 14 older wines—dating from 2011 to 2015—from two vineyards: Sur Echalas and Tribe. Get senior editor Tim Fish's tasting notes on the red wines!
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