ECHOLANDS WINERY WINS HIGHEST WASHINGTON TROPHY AT THE 2025 DECANTER MAGAZINE WORLD WINE AWARDS!
WALLA WALLA, Wash., June 23, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Echolands Winery, a Walla Walla AVA mainstay, has won a Platinum Award from the 2025 Decanter World Wine Awards. Out of nearly 17,000 entries, only one Washington wine was granted a Platinum Award – Echolands Winery Cabernet Franc Blue Mountain Vineyard 2022 Walla Walla Valley. Only three other U.S. wineries won Platinum Awards, one in Oregon and two in California.
The 97-point score was bestowed by an august group of judges, comprising mostly Master Sommeliers and Masters of Wine. "Winning a Gold or Platinum award at DWWA can literally change a producer's life," said DWWA judge and Master of Wine Tim Marson. The judges noted that Echolands' Blue Mountain Vineyard Cabernet Franc has, "an unrivalled purity of fruit: black cherry, berry and plum with a distinctive earthy, herbaceous tone. Mouth-filling and appetising with lustrous tannins and a beam of juicy acidity which undulates towards the long, smoky finish."
Celebrating its 22nd edition, the Decanter World Wine Awards remain the world's largest and most influential wine competition. This year, wines from 57 countries were evaluated by 248 top international experts, including 22 Master Sommeliers and 72 Masters of Wine – the most in the competition's history.
Though Frost and the Echolands team rely primarily upon their own vines for their fruit, there are special places in Walla Walla Valley that offer distinct expressions with certain grapes. "Blue Mountain Vineyard is a beautiful vineyard that is nestled in the foothills of the Blue Mountains and that is cooler than vineyards on the valley floor," Frost says. "That alone accounts for the lovely tension that we taste in the Cabernet Franc we buy from them. But it's an impeccably managed vineyard as well."
Echolands buys a select amount of fruit from a few neighboring vineyards, like the esteemed Blue Mountain Vineyard. "The Cabernet Franc that we pick at Blue Mountain Vineyard is really special," says winemaker Brian Rudin. "It's a complex and more aromatic version of the grape than you get from other, particularly warmer, sites," he says.
Walla Walla's famous Seven Hills Vineyard was the source for Echolands' Silver Medal-winning Seven Hills Vineyard Red 2020. Echolands' own Taggart Vineyard provided the Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon grapes for their Silver Medal-winning Albus Taggart Vineyard 2023.
Echolands Winery was founded in 2018 by renowned Master Sommelier and Master of Wine Doug Frost, in partnership with investor and conservationist Brad Bergman. Winemaker Brian Rudin manages the winery's 24-acre Taggart Vineyard on the Oregon side of the Walla Walla Valley, as well as the Echolands Estate Vineyard's 28 acres of vines on the Washington side of the valley. This is the first proprietary winery project for wine consultant and writer Doug Frost, one of only four people in the world to hold both the Master of Wine and Master Sommelier titles.
"We chose the name Echolands to reflect our fundamental reliance on the landscape, the vines and the very special sites where our wines are grown," says Doug Frost, CEO and Owner of Echolands Winery. "In truth, all wine is an echo of the landscape, of the vines planted there and the sound that they make in the form of their fruits. Winemaking cannot create qualities that are not there in the grapes. Like the creature of mythology known as Echo, we can only express what is given to us."
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SOURCE Echolands Winery