Black fruits, scorched earth, graphite, toasted spice, and some chalky minerality all emerge from the 2019 Cabernet Franc. It's a straight, focused, layered Cabernet Franc that's going to benefit from 2-3 years of bottle age.

Also beautiful, the 2019 Cabernet Franc checks in as 100% varietal that was raised in 67% new French oak. Inky purple in color, with a brilliant perfume of raspberries, cassis, spring flowers, scorched earth, and graphite, it hits the palate with medium-bodied richness, a terrific sense of elegance and purity, ripe yet present tannins, and a great finish. It's going to benefit from 3-5 years of bottle age and shine for two decades.

Gorgeous crème de cassis, plums, graphite, crushed stone and tobacco all emerge from the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon, another rich, medium to full-bodied, concentrated, dense, and incredibly impressive 2019 from this estate. It opens up nicely with time in the glass, but there's enough depth and structure here to warrant a solid 2-4 years of bottle age.

The third vintage for this cuvée and brought up in 10% new puncheons (24 months with no malolactic fermentation), the 2019 W.S. Keyes Vineyard Chardonnay offers a vibrant, cooler style in its pear, stone fruits, caramelized citrus, and floral aromas and flavors. With plenty of background minerality, medium body, bright acidity, and a great finish, it will evolve for a decade.

The current releases I was able to taste were the 2017s, all of which were brought in prior to the fires. The 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Bosché offers a classic 2017 elegant profile, and they managed the tannins nicely. The wine is medium to full-bodied and has terrific purity as well as notes of redcurrants, sandalwood, unsmoked tobacco, and spice. It's slighly more forward and sexy compared to the Sycamore Vineyard, but both of these are beautiful wines.

Starting with the 2019 Merlot, it gives up a dense purple hue as well as a great nose of spicy red and black fruits, tobacco, loamy earth, and graphite. I love this rich, medium to full-bodied, textured Merlot, and it should keep for 10-15 years.

The 2019 Malbec sports a dense purple, almost blue color and a great nose of ripe cassis and blueberry fruits as well as violets, peppery herbs, and graphite. I love its balance, and it has terrific purity, ripe tannins, and a great finish. Give it a few years.

Based on 82% Merlot, 11% Petit Verdot, and the rest Tannat, the 2019 Merlot offers a deep, saturated plum/ruby color to go with youthful, powerful notes of ripe red and black fruits, scorched earth, Asian spices, and lead pencil shavings. Rich, medium to full-bodied, concentrated, and textured on the palate, this rich, structured Merlot is going to evolve for at least 15-20 years.

The 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Oakville is even better, although there are a scant 500 cases made and it's sold direct to the consumer. Coming from gravelly, loamy soils off Highway 29, it has darker black and blue fruits as well as herbal tones in its violet, tobacco, earth, and spice-driven aromas and flavors. Medium to full-bodied, wonderfully pure, and balanced, with good acidity, it too is going to shine for at least a decade.

The 2019 Chardonnay Napa Valley is terrific and one classy rendition of Chardonnay from Napa Valley. Coming mostly from Carneros (there's some from Coombsville as well as the Keyes Vineyard on Howell Mountain), aged in 40% new French oak, it has plenty of ripe stone and melon fruits as well some honeyed toast and nutty nuances. Medium-bodied on the palate, with good acidity, and outstanding balance, it's ideal for drinking over the coming 2-3 years or so, if not longer.

Another small production cuvée (2,000 cases), the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Rutherford comes from a handful of sites in Rutherford and offers more medium to full-bodied aromas and flavors of red and black currants, tobacco, sandalwood, and cedar. It has some firmer, chewy tannins, so give bottles 2-3 years in the cellar. It will drink well for a decade.

There are roughly 25,000 cases of the 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, which is sourced from all over the valley. Certainly a beautiful wine worth seeking out (and it should be easy to find), it has ample ripe cherry and cassis fruits as well as spicy oak and tobacco nuances. This impeccably made, medium-bodied, elegant Cabernet will shine for a decade.

The 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Sycamore Vineyard is a bigger, darker, more structured wine with firm tannins as well as outstanding purity in its blackcurrant-like fruits as well as notes of candied violets, tobacco, and gravelly earth. Medium to full-bodied, concentrated, and tannic, hide bottles for 4-5 years.

Another riveting wine, the 2019 Mount Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon has a Château Latour-like stature and regalness, with full-bodied richness and incredible concentration, as well as structure, on the palate. Cassis, blueberry liqueur, lead pencil shavings, crushed stone, and graphite notes all define the nose, and it hits the palate with incredible power and opulence, yet stays pure, flawlessly balanced, and has a finish that won't quit. This is as brilliant as Cabernet gets, and Carpenter is clearly playing with the best in the business. Give bottles 4-5 years if you can and it will cruise for 30-40 years.

Coming all from the from the Keyes Vineyard on Howell Mountain, the 2019 Howell Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon (100% Cabernet Sauvignon) was brought up in 91% new French oak. Incredible crème de cassis, chalky minerality, iron, spring flowers, and black olive tapenade all define the nose, and It's full-bodied on the palate, with building tannins, integrated oak, wonderful sweetness of fruit, and a great, great finish. It opens up beautifully with time in the glass, and while it has classic Mountain structure and concentration, it also has a wealth of fruit and texture, and unquestionably offers pleasure even today. Nevertheless, do your best to hide bottles for 4-5 years if you can. It's a 30- to 40-year wine.

Top 6 in The 6ix: Wines of the Week
Looking for a rosé sparkling that is perfect for ringing in the new year? This awesome bottle from California’s Russian River is ideal with a charcuterie board and baked salmon. With a strong focus on sustainability and premium quality this wine is bursting with fresh floral and berry aromas and could easily become your new favourite bubbly.

A recap of some of the top wines that stood out in 2021:
Proxime Accessit - Hickinbotham Clarendon Vineyard The Peake Cabernet Shiraz 2019

60/40% upper/lower Yarra Valley fruit. Hand picked and open-fermented with 60% whole berries, the remainder whole bunches. A very bright, light–medium crimson red. A gentle waft of fresh raspberries and cranberries, with just the right amount of spice-rack spices. Delicious right out of the gate, this medium-bodied and refreshing wine will age well too. The perfect introduction to modern Yarra pinot.

The good people at Jackson Family Wines sent me a bottle of the Gran Moraine 2016 to celebrate International Chardonnay Day earlier in the year, and I’m very glad they did. Produced in the Willamette Valley’s Yamhil-Carlton region of Oregon, this is a remarkably well-balanced wine, showing butter and soft vanilla notes but with a pleasing saline mid-palate that allows the fruit – apricot and peach – as well as white flowers to come through. Chardonnay isn’t what usually comes to mind when thinking of Oregon but it certainly will for me after this. Another treasure from the inestimable JFW group.

This vibrant, structured sparkler is the first Blanc de Blancs from Gran Moraine winemaker Shane Moore. With more than five years on the lees, toasted brioche makes a play on the nose, beside oyster-shell minerality, almond blossom, lemon meringue, fresh pear and savory herbs. An exotic palate of lemongrass, clementine and lime zest is bright and savory, with hints of mushroom leading into the finish.

Dinner at Eleven Madison Park to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Sonoma’s secret star, Verité, with winemakers Pierre Seillan and his daughter Helene was a must-attend. We drank older vintages and the just-released 2018s of their three Bordeaux-style red blends: La Muse (based on merlot), Le Desir (on cabernet franc), and La Joie (on cabernet sauvignon).
I loved the powerful, plush 1998 and 2008 La Joie, but the 2018s were the stars for me, especially Le Desir, with its aromas of berries, violets, and damp earth and dark, brooding flavors. It’s going to live for decades.

Recommended

An 85/11/4% varietal split and made into an early-drinking style that’s taking the Valley by storm. Giant Steps make an LDR – light dry red – but this has an altogether different take with its flavour profile. Super-bright and juicy fruit, a mix of dark plums and red berries, sarsaparilla with a light dusting of spice. The palate is actually quite refined, with svelte tannins and refreshing acidity. Given the style brief, this is pitch perfect. It’s hard to put it down. So I didn’t.

Sauvignon blanc grapes can produce wines in the California style, with a green apple, melon and citrus flavor up front, as well as wines in the classical European style, with a prominent grassy flavor. The Sonoma County Sauvignon Blanc lives in both worlds. It has the classical grassy component that has been held in check so that the California style can be the most obvious. This allows the wine to be served with a wider spectrum of foods. The wine will accompany poultry and lighter meats and is a standout with seafood. Just as a piece of history, for years, when ordering a wine in an Asian restaurant it most often resulted in a bottle of Wan Fu, a French sauvignon blanc with a very Asian-inspired label. This confirms the variety’s ability to beautifully accompany Asian foods of any type. Some serious experimentation also has resulted in discovering that this wine will fit nicely with Mexican dishes, as well as being a fine choice to accompany the Christmas and New Year’s holiday dinners.

A chardonnay wine brings out the critic in all of us; you either hate it or love it. The La Crema 2019 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay is one of those chardonnays that you will just have to love. The grapes come from the Russian River Valley, which is famous for its award-winning chardonnay wines. The vintage is 2019, when the weather conditions for the grapes were picture perfect but the smoke and heat from forest fires to the south did cause some apprehension. Fortunately, there was no discernible damage done to the grapes, and the harvest and wine-making process progressed smoothly. The aroma is a complex of peach, mango, apple and lemon with hazelnut, caramel and vanilla in the background. Also complex is the flavor, featuring apple, nectarine, peach and apple, ending in a creamy butterscotch and oak finish.