These 8 sparkling wines will make your holiday season merry and brightFrom Oregon’s Willamette Valley, this blend of 57% chardonnay and 43% pinot noir follows the Champagne blueprint. Expect a lot more freshness on the nose and palate, with a dynamic minerality but also a creamy texture and acidity. Try it with duck with a balsamic reduction, or a pureed squash soup.

I’ve stocked up on this wine because it’s a favorite with several family members. Aromas of black cherry, blackberry jam, and cedar are followed by flavors of strawberry, boysenberry, and sassafras. The 2019 vintage presents balanced acidity and plush tannins. It can be served with the holidays’ roasted meats, with prosciutto and mushrooms or cured black olives. Perhaps even with beef stew, pasta Bolognese or pan-seared pork belly.Aromas of black cherry, blackberry jam and cedar are followed by flavors of strawberry, boysenberry and sassafras. The 2019 vintage presents balanced acidity and plush tannins.

Carmel Road Cabernet Sauvignon - Crowd PleasingThe 2018 Carmel Road Cabernet Sauvignon opens with an attractive aroma loaded with vanilla, dark berry fruit and coffee.Taking a sip reveals a very smooth and tasty medium-bodied Cab with lots of oak influence. Featuring similar flavors to the nose plus a little caramel and other sweet oak notes, this is a crowd pleasing wine that should make a good, highly affordable burger wine.It ends dry, long and grippy with a mouth puckering finish full of lasting vanilla notes.

Elegant and plush, this Bordeaux-style varietal is complex and alluring. Expect notes of tobacco leaf and black currants first, followed by this really unique sweet new oak — likely from the barrel — and, finally, a bold mix of spices.

More McLaren Vale than Cab Franc, but who cares when it’s an enjoyable drink?Then again, everything Hickinbotham is unwaveringly great, and this is no exception. From a 0.9ha vineyard planted in 2013. Cold soak, wild ferment, 15 days on skins, basket pressed. Includes 7% Malbec and 2% Merlot. Yield 6t/ha. Numbers: pH 3.53 TA 6.2g/L.Deep, dark and molten, it’s a black wine of considerable sexy oak and power. Seduction, weight, silken tannins. Right bank Bordeaux, but with a McLaren Vale mid palate. Lots of oak but not unbalanced. The flavour is abundant for such moderate alcohol. High class.Best drinking: good now, better in a few years, and fine drinking for at least fifteen more.

Bright with good tension, the 2019 ‘Yamhill-Carlton’ by Gran Moraine is an excellent, cool vintage effort. Teaberry and pine needles combine with orange zest embers that all take shape in the glass. The palate shows sterling tension and medium-bodied red fruit flavors that combine with the earthy undertones of the wine. I can see this cellaring well for at least another decade.

Soft, nicely textured and very approachable now, the 2018 ‘Yamhill-Carlton’ Chardonnay reveale shades of sourdough bread, white peach and Pink Lady apple on the palate, with light minerals backing thing up. Finishing long, this beautiful effort is already nicely evolved and will drink well over the next eight years.

The gorgeous 2014 Gran Moraine ‘Blanc de Blancs’ Sparkling Wine shows off Challah bread, lemon zest and chalky minerals on the palate with good length. Enjoy this over the next eight years.

If you love big, bold reds, this wine is for you. This wine is reminiscent of bruised apple, blackberry jam, with hints of herbs and pepper. The palate has a nice savory appeal to it, along with a good concentration of fruit and enough acidity to complement that density.

Vérité Le Désir is one of three Bordeaux-style blends crafted by Vérité in 2018, a hallmark vintage for many California wines. Structured around cabernet franc—with the restrained addition of merlot and malbec—Le Désir shines for showcasing the characteristic flavors and aromas of its primary grape: ripe raspberry, cranberry, and red currant represent the fruitiness of cabernet franc, while savory notes of sage, mint, and cinnamon provide complexity. A bold finish and bright acidity render it a playful wine to drink in its youth; however, those characteristics also suggest that the wine has excellent cellaring potential.

This bottle has all the classic, buttery characteristics of California Chardonnay, but these flavors are met with the energizing zing of tart lemon zest. This bottle may just convert your Chardonnay-hating friends.

This wine smells like cherries, fresh earth, and a dollop of cinnamon. It has a tight fruit core with a slight tannin on the palate. There is a little bit of a grip, making this a well-balanced bottle with good acidity.

Experience California's exquisite Sonoma Coast, in a bottle. Their original name, La Crema Vinera, means "best of the vine," setting the standard for all they have done for over four decades since 1979. This family-owned and operated winery focuses exclusively on cool-climate appellations. They are continually exploring these very special regions in The Golden State, passionate in the belief that they make uniquely expressive and elegant wines. With its unique geography and climate, the Sonoma Coast has proven itself to be one of the world's premier Pinot Noir producing regions. Enjoy this smooth Pinot Noir with your holiday charcuterie platter.

The 10 Best Oregon Pinot Noirs to Enjoy Right NowRosé is fast becoming a favorite wine for the Thanksgiving table due to its food-friendly, versatile nature. Marry the best of both worlds with this rosé of pinot noir. Strawberry and ripe berry fruits meet delicate floral tones, but there’s a streak of savory minerality that makes this complex quaffer a great match for the feast.

The 10 Best Oregon Pinot Noirs to Enjoy Right NowFounded in 1988, Penner-Ash’s 15 acres of LIVE-certified estate vineyard continues to produce riveting pinots. Blackberry, pepper, and violets on the nose give way to concentrated fruit on the palate. Though fruit-forward, there’s a lightness to the wine, with fine-grain tannins that provide a lovely texture.

Balanced and loaded with bright black cherry fruit and a bit of spice. It has an earthy profile too.

We have a friend who prefers this wine over all others and we can see why. For the price — often seen for far less – you get a melangê of red berry flavors. It’s simple but oh so delicious.

Matanzas Creek Merlot Alexander Valley 2018 has the soft mellowness you anticipate from quality merlot. Very good acidity, a real asset for food pairing. Inky color. Good on pop-and-pour; it becomes more mellow and approachable after extended exposure to air in the glass. Pair with lamb; grilled meats; roast beef; filet mignon; gourmet burgers; grilled or roast chicken; roast pork and pork loin; mushrooms; Swiss cheese, gruyere, parmesan, havarti, gouda, brie, camembert cheese.

Fragrant, modern, effusive.An reliably delicious and expressive California Cabernet, the 2018 delivers aromas of kirsch and black raspberry, baking spices, pencil shavings, chocolate nibs, vanilla and violets. Lovely cassis on the palate is layered with cocoa, cardamon, cinnamon and clove.It's a mouthfilling and modern wine with sweet tannins.

Now that we’ve tasted the 2017, that seems even more apt because this was such an awesome food wine. When we opened it, it looked young and fresh, like blackberry or black cherry juice. It had those fruits on the nose, too, along with some minerals. “It smells like it’s going to be more giving than the first two,” Dottie said, and she was right. It was filled with fruit, good tannins, integrated oak and a bit of bittersweet chocolate, but – even with all of that – had a medium weight that created elegance. “There’s layers and layers of stuff in here,” Dottie said. We picked up basil and rosemary, which made John say: “Stuffing!” It’s hard to imagine a wine that would be better with Thanksgiving dinner. “This cries out for food,” Dottie said, and, indeed, with her pork with capers and green olives, it was a weep-worthy pairing. As we continued to drink, the finish became dryer and dryer “like it’s vacuuming my mouth,” Dottie said. It picked up some anise and crushed lavender. Two hours after opening, the wine had more black olives and lean tannins. It was beautiful and ready to drink now, although it should age beautifully. There’s nothing obvious about this wine, which is 88% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Petit Verdot, 5% Cabernet Franc and 3% Merlot.

As usual, the Mt. Brave Merlot 2018 displays all the hallmarks of vines grown at 1,400 to 1,800-foot elevation — a dense, dark ruby-purple hue; notes of cedar, tobacco, sage and chaparral; threads of intense and concentrated blueberries, black currants and plums, permeated by graphite and flint-like minerality; a few moments in the glass tease out hints of violets and lavender, bitter chocolate and loam; the structure is monumental, mountain-like, and tannins embody the old Napa Valley adage about the iron fist in a velvet glove; the finish deep, granitic, supple. Try from 2023 through 2032 to ’35. Exceptional.

The 2018 Penner-Ash Chardonnay shows ripe honeysuckle tones on the nose with baking spice laced sourdough bread and bright melon tones. The palate is fresh and viscous with a great beam of tension as saline dusted orchard and citrus fruits greet you alongside undercurrents of wild mushroom. Really good to enjoy right now, this has another eight plus years ahead of it.

The 2019 ‘Estate Vineyard’ Pinot Noir is a medium-bodied Pinot Noir that is already nicely evolved. Ripe teaberry and red raspberry flavors mingle with minerals and flinty undertones with shades of tangerine rind on the palate.

Done in a fresher style, the 2019 ‘Willamette Valley’ Pinot Noir shows off a polished texture with layers of marionberry and black cherry that mingle with tilled soils and shades of peat moss on the palate. Enjoy this medium-bodied effort over the next seven years.

Pinot purity right here, folks. There’s a certain precision and definition too. A delightful combo of joy and complexity: rhubarb and freshly grated beetroot, sweet red cherries, florals and warm spices, with the oak neatly tucked in. Superfine tannins, laser-like acidity and terrific length seal the deal.