The 2019 Pinot Noir Clairière is dark and brooding, with a rich blend of steeped plums, sage and blood orange. This is sleek and wiry in nature, with balancing depths of ripe red and blue fruits complemented by balsam herbs and hints of exotic spice. Gently grippy tannins frame the experience as the 2019 tapers off impressively long. A sweet herbal tinge that calls the taster back to the glass.

Forget the heavy, chocolaty Zins you may have drunk before, this one is all freshness and lift without sacrificing the fabulous wild blackberries, sage and raspberries for which California’s heritage grape is famous. While full bodied, it feels vibrant, well balanced and ready to pair with most any meat or poultry entree. —J.G

A strong cedar and rosemary aroma gets you prepped for the concentrated, brilliant, dried cherry and fresh raspberry flavors that follow. This high-octane wine comes from 100-year-old vines. It is lively, flavorpacked and practically vibrating with vibrant oak and skin tannins. —J.G.

All smoothness and polish, this velvet-textured wine is scented with rose petals, cinnamon and black cherries, while lively fruit acidity boosts the deep cherry flavors in the mouth. The wine is so welcoming, yet also structured enough to create myriad food pairings and to improve with further age. Best from 2026. —J.G.

The 2021 Pinot Noir Machado has deep, gently broody scents of pomegranate, blackberry, Angostura bitters and dark spices. The medium-bodied palate is chalky with vibrant acidity, a concentrated core of spicy fruit and a long, layered finish.

Deeply structured and expressive, with dark raspberry and pomegranate flavors. Offers accents of black tea, dusky spices and clove as this builds tension toward medium-grained tannins. Drink now through 2032. —T.F.

100% Shiraz, mostly from fifty plus year old vines. Handpicked 20% whole bunch, 30% destemmed, 50% crushed. An elegant nose with abundant florals – crushed rose petals, candied violets and a very subtle menthol note paving the way for red and purple fruits, a dusty graphite thread woven throughout, and carefully handled oak. The palate offers up a continuation of the nose, with a tumble of red berries, tarry graphite, aniseed pastilles and a savoury finish that whispers of charcuterie. A fine boned framework allows a silky ripple of acid to lace its way along the long, nubile tannins. Supple and poised for action, this wine hums along gently while keeping its feet firmly on the ground. Lovely and polished.

Malbec 99%. Cab Franc 1%. This is the first release of this wine and certainly won’t be the last. This is powerful stuff. Ripe, concentrated fruit and that glorious shade of inky magenta that only Malbec can provide. Juby notes of redcurrant and salted red plum, with a lightly woven knit of spice and musk lolly. Cardamon, cinnamon and ruby red fruits – it’s like a journey down the silk route full of heady opulence and swaying bejewelled rose hips. Tannins are chewy and morish, weighted perfectly in line with the power of the fruit which is gently nestled in 60% new oak. It seems sizeable, but this fruit can hold it with ease. One of those wines you sip and forget to spit.

Cabernet Franc has the capacity to delight, enchant, and bewitch, however it so often is overlooked as a blending grape or it sits quietly in the shadow of its better known relations. The Nest ticks all of the above boxes, and it is a joy to find such a well-cared for iteration of the variety, placing Cab Franc front and centre instead of as an afterthought. This is a fuller bodied Cabernet Franc, dark and brooding. A woodland fairy-tale of a nose with briar rose, black rounded fruits, a summery floral prettiness, with an undercurrent of autumnal decay – a wine of contradictions. Succulence and youth framed with gnarly earthy notes that speak of age. A hint of fresh growth and the malleability of youth, paired with the slight decay of bushland underbrush. Resin, dark chocolate and spice, oak has stamped it’s signet ring on the wine. Freshness and complexity. Tannins are well-defined, the structure is firm and provides an ageworthy frame on which the fruit hangs before a slight bitter radicchio note on the finish.

It’s a mighty red wine, weighty with fruit and oak flavour, but it’s also fresh and flowing. It’s the kind of wine that simply sweeps you along. Sweet raspberry, dense plum, cloves and assorted woodsy spice notes, along with soy, cream and cedar. There’s a chalkiness to the tannin, or at least a fine chalk-dust element, and a general impression of completeness. For all its grunt though I can’t really emphasis the freshness of the profile here enough. It makes this feel as though it’s something of a modern archetype.

Blueberry, iodine and oyster shell, liquorice, cedar and nougat, some floral notes and dried mint. It’s ripe and sweet fruited, all blackcurrant, boysenberry and blueberry, kind of like a pie with a spicy crust, but also a little ferrous and earthy, with firm ironstone and silty tannin, and a huge volume of flavour, all black olive tapenade and sage and sweet dark fruit on a finish of excellent length. It’s a bold wine, and kind of overt as a youngster, but should turn out well with considerable bottle age

The 2021 Pinot Noir Viñedo Maricerro hails from the Itata Valley and was aged for 10 months in 27% new French oak barrels. Ruby-red in hue. The raspberry and blueberry aromas are accompanied by sweet cherry and garrigue over a bed of cedar and sandalwood. Lean and silky in the mouth, the chalky texture and refreshing palate precede a long-lasting finish.

The 2021 Chardonnay W.S. Keyes Vineyard is terrific. Coming from a site on Howell Mountain, it has bright lemon and tangerine fruit as well as some honeyed, flinty mineral, spice, and savory herb notes. It's medium-bodied, has bright acidity, beautiful balance, and outstanding length. It's going to benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age, and I suspect have 10-12 years of overall longevity.

Love the aromas of currants, sweet tobacco, lead pencil, and hints of redwood. Medium to full body with beautifully integrated tannins that are polished and refined. Fresh and nicely balanced. A beauty. A blend of 94% cabernet sauvignon, 5% petit verdot and 1% merlot. So drinkable now.

This is mountain Merlot at its best. The grapes were sourced from a vineyard in Napa’s Howell Mountain AVA that sits at an elevation of 1,600 feet. That altitude keeps daytime temperatures cooler, while the location above the fog line leads to warmer evenings, resulting in a long, slow growing season. The long hang time allows the fruit to develop deep and complex flavors while maintaining acidity. This particular bottle has a nose of rich dark berries with a wisp of pepper and baking spices from oak aging. The acidity and slight tannic grip balance out deep fruit flavors on the palate.

The aromas of pure fruit such as blackberries are really impressive with hints of fresh pine needles. Iron. Sea shell. A refined and polished finish. Creamy at the end. Made from 100% cabernet franc.

A balanced and polished red with berries and chocolate with some walnuts and bark. Medium body with juicy tannins. Polished and savory. Drink or hold.

A distinctive version, with a velvety core of blueberry and blackberry notes that show a touch of huckleberry, accented by fresh rosemary, bay leaf and sage notes, plus details of tobacco, salted black licorice and oolong tea that linger on the long, expressive finish. Drink now through 2034. 207 cases made, 100 cases imported. -M.W.

The nose smells of chalk and blood oranges with whiffs of saline and mint. The palate entry is sharply defined luscious peach and apricot and a pervasive jasmine in the core finishing with impression of baking spices and silky acidity. Drink 2023-2027.

Opulence meets restraint in this Mt Brave bottling from the high elevation Mt Veeder AVA in Napa Valley. Aromas of spiced black plums, cinder, smoke and dried floral notes are underpinned by an esoteric mint note. The palate is lush, rich and brooding. Dark plum flesh, Christmas spice and blackberries meld together with rich raisin and chocolate notes. There is a savoury balance that brings acidity to lift the proceedings.

Medium color with a very lovely nose of Bing cherry and earth. Nice. The palate is harmonious and tasty with solid fruit and great balance. Whoa. Outstanding.

Bright aromas of cherry and cranberry are underpinned by white pepper, savory spice and a slight meaty nuance, with a stony, mineral core. Succulent red-berry flavors are lifted by tart acidity on the midweight palate, and a line of chiseled, textural tannins weaves it all together. This is a still tightly wound vintage of High Sands that should evolve nicely with time in bottle, for a decade or more. Sovereign Wine Imports. Cellar Selection. —C.P.

This wine has a deep, dark and tempting core of black fruits and oak spices that is surrounded by the velvety, welcoming texture expected from a Merlot. Blackberries, blueberries, toasted wood and cedar bring out complexity on the palate and linger on the finish. Best through 2030. —J.G.

Supersaturated with black fig and dried cherry aromas, this full-bodied wine dives into more deep, pure and ripe-tasting fruit flavors on the palate, accented by dark chocolate and blueberries. Mild tannins and a full body lend a mouthfilling texture that contributes to a lingering finish. —J.G.

At over 730m the, Christopher's site produces concentrated Cabernet with freshness and lift. It is a rugged vineyard site atop the Stonestreet estate mountain complex—aromas of evergreen bough, chicory root, crushed raspberries, and mineral notes of smashed black stone. The palate shows a density of black fruits lifted by bay leaf, Chinese five-spice, crushed stone minerals and pine tar. It's still coming along at nearly a decade.