This deep purple colored Cabernet Sauvignon from Stonestreet opens with a black cherry and gentle oak bouquet with hints of stewed plum. On the palate, this wine is medium plus bodied, well-balanced and super smooth. The flavor profile is gentle blend of black currant and black raspberry, fine minerals and oak. We also detected hints of vanilla and loam mixed in. The finish is dry and its fine-grained tannins stick around for quite some time. The Panel would decant this Cab and pair it with Steve’s short ribs, chicken mole, or a flourless chocolate cake.

10 Interesting Wine-Related Discoveries For March 2021This Merlot-led blend is sourced primarily from the Valadorna and Capraia blocks, which produce the estate’s most complex and mineral-based expressions of this variety. The blocks are located within the cooler part of the estate, naturally-irrigated by the stream that undulates through it, and feature sandy brown soils and lower yields than typical. These blocks are often the last Merlot blocks to ripen on the estate. In warm years like 2015, Merlot shows its soft, savory and slightly-racy character.The wine itself exhibits high-toned aromas of ripe black cherries, vanilla bean and cedar alike. With bright acidity, it expands quickly on the palate. Plush tannins carry through the center with a fine, tingling finish. The palate shows flavors of tart cherry pie, dried red berries and black licorice, with a long finish of white pepper, dusty roses and stony minerality.

Hawkeye Mountain is K-J's signature mountain property in the Alexander Valley AVA. It is planted from 900 to 2400 feet above sea level on shallow, rocky, and gravelly loam. The vineyard pitches mostly west and sometimes south on steep hillsides. For the most part, limited release Hawkeye Ridge red sits above the fog line earning the ‘island in the sky’ moniker. Early mornings can be cool, building acidity and lengthening the growing season, but the afternoons above the fog line are warm. It’s a mountain wine, so double decanting is highly recommended if you're going to drink it at such a young age. It’s the second time I have tasted this wine this year, and it remains big and bold but with a surprising amount of restraint. The palate is packed full of black fruit spiked with licorice, tobacco, and a quiet undercurrent of oak. The finish is long, savoury, and persistent with mineral tones and rich, fine-grained tannins. This is the real deal and an excellent starting point to talk about Sonoma County cabernet's ability to reach eights normally attributed to only Napa Valley. Bravo Randy Ullom.

Deep, darkling purple/red colour, with a bouquet of wood-smoke and undergrowth. The wine is full-bodied and somewhat subdued in its fruit expression while the tannins are very abundant and quite firm, leaving a determined grip at the finish. Latent cherry and plum. A big, generous, solidly built shiraz that will reward cellaring.

The 2018 Château Lassegue emerges from the home estate of Pierre Seillan, who's also behind the incredibly quality of Verite in Sonoma County. It's a beautifully seductive, seamless 2018 with a wonderful core of red and blue fruits, notes of leafy herbs and tobacco, nicely integrated tannins, a great mid-palate, and a rounded, mouth-filling texture. Beautifully done, enjoy this irresistible Saint-Emilion over the coming two decades.

A very elegant pinot, with dark aromas, silky texture, stunning flavors.

A big ripe cab from one of the leaders in the field, at a great price.

A classic California chard, stylish, with finesse, light oak.

Cali dreamin’I’m nipping to California (if only) to bring you this wine created by winemaker Jill Russell.Cambria Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay 2017 is a celebration of the delicious journey a chardonnay can take in California. The wine has spent six months in oak, some of it new, but it isn’t shouty.Freshly sliced green apples say hello, then fruits with an apple crumble character raise their hands in greeting. Tropical fruit and citrus notes are pretty keen to be involved in the palate party.The proprietor of Cambria Estate Winery is Barbara Banke; the wine is named after one of her daughters, Katie Jackson; and its made by Jill. Girl power!

Subtle aromas of sweet berries, Spanish cedar and blackberries with some black mushrooms. Medium-to full-bodied with fine yet chewy tannins and a long finish. Solid and racy. Tight now. Drink after 2024.

Sommelier Tries 20 White Wines Under $15So next up, we have Kendall Jackson. This is the Vintners Reserve chardonnay and this is from California 2018. This is a name that we all know, it's one of the big players in the wine industry. First off, lots of tropical fruit. Pineapple, papaya, a little bit of green mango. Get lots of like luscious vanilla. And that's due to the oak. It's not over the top buttery and rich in that style. And there's kind of just, just whack, it just like hits you right in the mouth. You know, I think at $11 I think you could find some other great interesting wines at that price point. But if this is your jam, this is your jam and $11, you know, it works.

40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 59% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot. Which is a bit more merlot and a lot less petit verdot than was used to make the 2018.My initial impression was that this is a more voluptuous style than normal but then it quickly honed and straightened. This is complex, energetic, ripe and just plain lovely; it’s medium in weight, herb-flecked and clearly from the cabernet family and yet it’s seamless and svelte too. Seductive but with extras. True to itself but not without flair. You get the idea. It’s good. Structural but with freshness and flesh.

The 2018 Lassègue has a really gorgeous bouquet of luscious dark cherry fruit, cassis, crushed violets and vanilla pod. It becomes increasingly floral with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied and sweet with supple tannins. Licorice and brown spices filter through the black fruit, leading to a satin-textured finish. Very seductive and quite heady, this is a Saint-Émilion that clearly has ambitions, though overall I find it just a little too sweet.

An elegant blend of ripe peach and crisp, citrus fruit, with a refreshing, cool salinity, this is a sunshine Chardonnay that is anything but blousy. Subtle oak pops through on the palate in the form of cooking spices and a touch of smoke, creating a flavoursome wine in perfect balance.

The 13 Best New Merlots to Buy Right NowThis 10-year-old from the La Jota vineyard honoring Howell Mountain wine pioneer W.S. Keyes (he planted it in the late 1800s)—just re-released—is a delicious argument for aging great Merlot. Still fresh with bright fruit and acidity, it’s offering complex layers of flavor and aromas now. Loam and pencil shavings are showing under berry liqueur and dark chocolate. Ripe but elegantly firm tannins give structure to spicy black raspberry and cherry, with mountain intensity carrying through a lingering finish.

One to satisfy any ardent California chardonnay fan. Butter on the nose and butter on the palate, with rich and bright pineapple and lemon curd. The best part is the fresh acidity to provide balance to the oak and the ripe fruit.

I’ve always loved Brewer-Clifton wines, and I’m not the only one who does. But this sample was showing outrageously well when I had it, with big bing cherries and a note of cigar-box in spite of the fact that the winery states that this wine was aged on neutral oak. Brewer-Clifton prides itself on technical mastery of the winemaking process, including whole cluster fermentation, in which stems are left to be fermented with the grapes. This probably has a lot to do with that cedar cigar box flavor. Whatever… I was rolling my eyes with delight. And that was before I heard the super-value price.

2017 was a solid vintage marred only by the horrific wildfires that swept through the region in October. The nose alone will tell you this wine was picked just prior to the fires. Both floral and mineral, with exotic spice penetrating the wine from front to back. The wine was fermented in stainless steel and then underwent native malolactic fermentation in barrels to round acidity and softly integrate the vanillin character of French oak (94% new). It is barrel aged for months and is bottled without fining or filtration. The blend is 94/3/1.5/1.5 cabernet sauvignon, malbec, cabernet franc, and petit verdot, and it is a giant of a wine packed full of black and blue fruit, purity, and a bony cedar tannic backbone. It will require a decade to rest and settle into a wine you can enjoy by the bottle. For now, a glass or two with a favourite steak is the best way to explore this terrific wine. Mt. Brave Vineyard sits high atop Mt. Veeder at an elevation of 1,400 to 1,800 feet on an area planted since the early 1860s. On the western flank of Napa Valley, the estate is named for the native Wappos, who first called it home. The mountain site is all about high elevation and thin, rocky soils planted to four cabernet clones (191, 4, 8, and 337) and three rootstocks (3309C, 101-14, and 1103P) that combine to neutralize some of the issues in what is usually a slow-moving, long, cool growing season above the fog line.

This special limited release Santa Maria Valley chardonnay was established in 1981. The vineyard sits 350-450 feet above sea level, not far from the California Coast in a rare east-west mountain range that opens to almost daily cooling marine air from the Pacific Ocean. The result is a long, cool growing season that produces intense flavours (think New Zealand) with naturally high acidity. The nose is awash in tropical notes of guava, lime, mango, and vanilla. The palate is equally rich but with some mineral undertones from the ancient seabed that sits under the vineyard. The wine is getting drier and more complex every year, upping its quality quotient. Think lobster or any butter-based fish or creamy pasta. It's 40+ years, clone 4 chardonnay grown on its own roots, and barrel aged 7 months in French oak (39 percent new).

A quarter century of winemaking at Hartford Family Winery has seen incremental improvements, rewarding for all. The winery, located in Forestville in the heart of the Russian River Valley, is a vital part of the Jackson Family Wines collection, and specializes in small lot wines. Once rich, thick, and powerful, the wines have gathered a new sensibility over the last five years, reigning in the power and weight to some extent to let the fruit and terroir poke through. This 2018 is a great example of a more modern California chardonnay style, not screechingly acidic but rather hedonistically well formed with cooler flavours of pear, peach, ginger, pineapple, and warm brioche, finishing with honey, spice, and minerality. Lobster, crab, roasted chicken, and fish dishes all work here.

Julia's Vineyard was originally planted in the 1970s, and was named for Julia Jackson in 1988 after the Jackson family purchased the winery two years earlier. You feel the warmth of Santa Maria Valley here, both in terms of the darker fruit profile and the rich, glycerous texture. But it's nicely balanced by savoury notes of underbrush and flint, with well-integrated oak spice. Already drinking well now, thanks to its silky tannins, serve this with a slight chill to bring out more freshness. It's serious pinot that's a steal at this price. Recommended.

If you want to know what’s up in modern Napa, check out this merlot based mix: 91.5% merlot, 5.8% cabernet sauvignon and 2.5% petit verdot, of which 77 percent is mountain fruit from Keyes Vineyard on Howell Mountain (63%) and Stagecoach Vineyard (14%) on Atlas Mountain. The remainder comes from the Oakville, Calistoga, and Rutherford area on the floor of Napa Valley. The mountain fruit has transformed this wine, giving it more purpose, far beyond the merlot mould. The palate is enticing with medium spice, perfect oak, and a mix of blue and red fruit that assimilate most winemaking and barrel work. You can drink this now with food or cellar through 2030 and beyond.

It is year 19 for the Viognier label, and it arrives with a great flavour profile. It is 92 percent fermented in Stainless steel for freshness, with an additional 8 percent fermenting in a concrete egg to add some texture and mouthfeel to the finished wine. The growing season started cool before moving to a warmer than average summer followed by a cool finish — perhaps best for tuning all of the viognier’s panoply of flavours to a perfect pitch. Look for an exotic orange blossom and jasmine nose that spills across the palate that adds some green apple freshness and subtle notes of bitter lime for complexing — a delicious and stylish viognier that walks the tightrope of richness and leanness to a tee.

Mid-straw in colour, with some bronze tints. The aromas are of wheat, hessian, nuts and haybales, really savoury and expressive. The palate is mid-weight, with flavours of white peach and apricot kernel, there's also a nuttiness and a hint of honey. The wine has a little phenolic grip and combined with the acidity, it gives excellent structure and savouriness to the finish.

The colour is quite deep in colour, with bronzed hues. Aromas of cut-hay, candied orange and a nuttiness. A richly-textured wine that has a real presence on the palate. There's tangy, citrus flavours melding with a grippy, mealy, savoury, phenolic dryness that gives the palate some real length.