This wine is dark and dense, its concentrated black-cherry flavors woven with notes of licorice, vanilla and warm spice. Hints of amaro bitterness add complexity to the rich flavors, a match for grilled game or other robust dishes.

Oak enriches this wines' creamy texture and provides the base notes while the fruit shimmers on top. It's a powerful pinot with enough brisk structure and high-toned fruit to carry all the richness.

From a vineyard in Bloomfield, a village in the coastal hills south of Freestone, this wine delivers cool richness in flavors of juicy kumquat, red spice and layers of earthy tannins that have a supple red-clay feel. It's integrated, lasting and clean.

This gentle pinot fans out in a range of transparent red fruit flavors, hinting at wild strawberries and sour cherries, complete with the pits and the leaves. That tangy berry flavor lasts, on the incipient side of ripeness. It has the delicacy for Japanese fare, like Hamachi kama.

If you look to Hartford for rich Russian River pinot noirs, you'll find this to be a departure—a bright, oceanic red with the umami brininess of seaweed and salt-cured olives. There's a light cherry sweetness to check the saltiness, setting up an appetite for pasta tossed with sea urchin.

Julia's is always dark red and savory, with a scent of the sea, of turf and dark-red fruits. What starts out lean and cool becomes more rounded and seamless in the glass, all the complexity filled in a black-cherry lushness—and wonderfully lively for a 2016.

Rich and deep, with plenty of oak to gather the lush fruit, this is a broad-shouldered pinot with the power and generosity for braised beef.

This pinot comes from the Jackson family's estate in Annapolis, where the fruit grew to generous ripeness while still holding some coastal briskness. The sweetness of dimpled grapes lends richness, the wine lasting in a dusty, lively and elegant finish.

Allspice, coffee and mocha scents show the integration of the oak tannins in this wine, their subtle red spice lasting over the red fruit. The flavors are big rather than deep, their youth hiding what one taster described as "tantalizing complexity around the edges."

With its fresh raspberry and red peach-skin flavors, this is a lush and vibrant pinot noir with some transparency to its flavors. Its tense and lightly abrasive tannins will mellow with a year or two of bottle age, then serve it with grilled tuna.

Tangy and svelte with cranberry flavors that last, this wine has a tight frame of tannins to highlight the fruit. The structure and the content combine in a lithe pinot noir, fragrant and clean.

Plush and supple, this wine focuses on textural pleasures when first poured. As it opens over the course of a day, the notes of cherry liqueur feel increasingly grounded in mineral-edged tannins. Decant it for shredded duck with bamboo shoots.

Warm with a ripe cherry and berry scent and velvety red fruit flavors, this wine is simple, supple and rounded with a mild grip of tannin—just the right weight for braised chicken thighs.

This lean well-priced pinot doesn't pander with added sugar or extract. Instead, you can taste the wind off Monterey Bay, the flavors all tart cherry and berry, with a modest oak complement that doesn't get in the way of the vibrant fruit. A well-made, go-to pinot noir staple.

A black-fruited pinot noir, this is gamey and waxy at first, its dark flavors growing sleek as they take shape with air. Give this a year in the cellar then serve with a thick-cut sirloin.

Toasty aromas of macadamia nut, coconut and light marshmallow show on the nose of this bottling. With light tannins that float across the fluffy, pleasant palate, the wine offers seared apple and more marshmallow flavors.

Aged in both French and American oak, this approachable red is earthy and herbal, with full-bodied fruit concentration. The flavors range from black currant to plum and nutmeg, finishing robustly in oak.

The Best Sonoma Syrah Wines Any Syrah Lover Must TasteCopain Wines is a Sonoma winery that hosted at my Inagaural Pinots & Plaid Pinot Noir Tasting and adore. I had the chance to visit this beautiful Sonoma gem and fell in love. Read more about my visit to Copain Winery, a Sonoma Winery You Won’t Want to Miss. As for their Syrah which comes from Anderson Valley’s Yorkville Highlands it is a bold Syrah with Red Rasberry and Boysenberry fruit flavors, with elements of stone and spiciness adding to the complexity of this lovely wine.

The Best Syrah Wines Under $35I’ve loved Penner-Ash Cellars for quite a while, and all of their wines are absolutely fantastic! Wineries in Oregon are stunning, read about The Most Incredible Oregon Wineries I’ve Visited on my blog here. The Penner-Ash Syrah is $35 and you can find it on the website here.

The Best Syrah Wines Under $35Kendall-Jackson produces some award-winning lines that combine the cool, coastal, mountains of California. See the Kendall-Jackson website to try their fantastic Syrah for $17.

The Best Syrah Wines Under $35Cambria Wines Syrah is a deep, dark purple color with the perfect balance of flavor. Located in the Santa Maria Valley, their vineyards add for the perfect taste. See the Cambria Wines website to grab your bottle of Tepusquet Vineyard Syrah, one of the Best Syrah Wines for $32.

The Best for $15 or LessA sunny pinot with earthy tannins framing simple red fruit.

STA. RITA HILLSCALIFORNIAThe first significant vineyard was planted here in 1971, but budding awareness of how great its Pinot Noirs could be hit in the early 2000’s, and now its wines are cool-climate benchmarks. Try the 2016 Brewer-Clifton Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir to taste the brambly wild berries and faint salinity that characterize these wines.

COOL-CLIMATE CHARDONNAYCooler regions make Chardonnays that tend to be lower in alcohol with bright acidity and less overtly ripe fruit. Chablis is the touchstone, but regions like Australia's Yarra Valley where the vibrant 2020 Giant Steps Chardonnay comes from are rising fast.

Naturally fermented in 1800L stone amphora with little agitation aside from wetting the cap. 90 days on skins. An additional 8 months in amphora. This cuvée is akin to the finest pinot; svelte, detailed and uplifting. Aromas of sour cherry, raspberry, rosewater, mace and orange zest. The superior wine of 2019 here, or at least what I've tasted to date. Stunning. The tannins, growing with air and the next sip. The finish, jitterbug energetic, chiselled and chamois of texture. Long and succulent. Another addition to the Australian stable of finessed world-class grenache.