While preparing a beef dinner the other night, I pulled a Ryan Patrick Vineyards 2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon Columbia Valley from the cellar, a bottle I won as a result of a survey contest from Northwest Palate magazine.

This Washington cab was just not our style, for it's high alcohol (14.5% listed on the label) obliterated any fruit and burned away any possible finish it might offer. To each his or her own, but this is a Washington wine that is meant to be drunk young, meaning a year or two after bottling. Otherwise, time will only fade the fruit, leaving little left other than a lot of alcohol.

After a taste or two confirming this wasn't going to be a food friendly wine, down the drain this one went. In it's place, we pulled a Tertulia, a Walla Walla cab at the same $35 price point, but made in a style much more to our liking.