Winemaker Cory Empting notes that 'Quella is typically the Somm favourite' surely because it is often the brightest and most precise of the BOND wines and seems to beg for a three-course meal. In 2020, the nose offered very pretty and lifted savoury notes of sagebrush and thyme with blackberry and cherry fruits nuanced by crushed stone minerality, tobacco and black olive. Medium-bodied with a saline mineral tinge to the red berry fruits. The tannins are firm and very fine-grained. More of those aromatic, savoury notes fill out the mid-palate, etching its fruit profile into deep crevices. The finish is shorter in this vintage, finding length perhaps with aeration, and it is nonetheless a very satisfying and complete wine with excellent balance and precision. (JC)

The 2020 Quella is quite bold—almost pungent in this vintage. Dried herbs, olives, iron, dark fruit, leather and game lend quite a bit of wildness throughout. There's good depth in its intensely ripe, dark fruit, certainly more than enough to balance the firm Quella tannins. The 2020 is marked by a distinctive Syrah-like quality, especially in its assertive aromatics. (AG)