One of the riper of the Highland Estate's current crop of Cabernets, the Hawkeye Mountain shows intense varietal character. It's rich in black currants and cedar, with a tangy minerality and firm but pliant tannins. A beautiful Cabernet, at its best now and through 2015.

Hawkeye Mountain is the spectacular signature KJ property on Alexander Mountain...The 2005 is easily the best yet, bathed in spicy black cherry, and tobacco scented fruit flecked with green olive, licorice and cassis. Clone 4 and 7 cabernets, grown on steep hillsides and terraces, provide a firm structure for this red wine to live a long life. Impressive and savoury, made from small clusters of small berries, sitting well above the valley floor at 900-2,200 feet elevation. Buy and cellar for 5 to 7 years and beyond.

The wild blackberry scents along with the vibrant minerality of the tannin identify this as a mountain wine. The brisk tannin yields more supple, rich fruit as the wine mellows a bit with air.

From the Jackson family's Knights Valley vineyard adjacent to the Peter Michael estate, Trace is the central block dedicated to Kendall-Jackson, a southwest-facing ridge planted on gravelly, volcanic soils. It's a warm spot during the day that cools dramatically at night, maintaining the freshness in this 2004, a tension between cool black cherry flavors and warmer touches of fig. Mineral tannins add dimension, so the wine feels both intense and elegant, sleek and supple.

New oak and ripe Cabernet fruit mesh seamlessly in this 100% varietal wine, grown at very high elevations in the Mayacamas Mountains. Full-bodied and lush, it brims with blackberry tart, black cherry jam, mocha, root beer, cola, molasses and sweet vanilla oak. Enormously complex, the wine unfolds in delicious layer after layer. Best opened young to enjoy it voluptuous fruit.

Randy Ullom is crafting some of the best Cabernets in California these days, small-lot releases made from selected mountain vineyards. This one's made in the house style, offering tiers of ripe fruit wrapped into a soft, velvety wine of great style and complexity. Fully dry, this 100% varietal is instantly appealing for its plush cherry, chocolate and blackberry flavors that finish with the smoky sweetness of new oak.

Succulent wild-blueberry flavors take on the earthiness of this wine's tannin and the espresso-roast coffee scents of its oak. It's black and untamed, as if energized by cool forest air in the mountains above Napa. The fruit is what lasts, approachable now if you decant it for squab wrapped in pancetta with a wild mushroom risotto. Grown at Jackson family's Veeder Peak Vineyard, this will probably reach maturity around ten years from the vintage.

Beautifully focused varietal aromas of currants, root beer, vanilla extract with wisps of briar and toast take this special effort to the top of the very formidable group of single-vineyard bottlings authored by Kendall-Jackson.

From one of the highest vineyards in the Sonoma Mayacamas comes this profoundly structured, deeply tannic Cab, which also is quite oaky. Bone dry and relatively closed and astringent, it's of very fine quality, and desperately needs time. Twenty years isn't out of the question to allow the nuclear core of blackberries and cherries to unfurl.

Open nose with lanolin, honey, mineral, creamy lees, citrus and floral aromas. Rich and round with good acidity. Long pineapple, honey and apple finish. A touch hot, like the 98 but a bit more elegant and with better acidity balance, although less ripe tropical fruit characters.

Put aside any preconceptions you may have about the Kendall-Jackson style, the wine that struck gold with a touch of residual sweetness, and taste this new release made by Randy Ullom. You'll recognize the Jackson touch in the wine's size and ripeness: It's big and full, with sweet peach scents. But it doesn't finish sweet, and it goes far beyond anything you might have tasted before from this producer: This is a complex, winey chardonnay, built on a robust layering of flavors that last in a gentle, unhurried way. In fact, you could sip and study it over the course of hours, trying to unravel the layers of smoked meat, apple mash and applewood smoke, pear and dry peach. The promise of ripeness is there in the initial aroma and carries through...

Exploring The Best New Releases from Sonoma and Beyond The 2017 Chardonnay Stature is a very pretty and expressive wine. Tangerine peel, spice, vanillin and butter notes are all laced together. Supple and racy in the glass, with attractive exotic overtones, the Stature is impeccably balanced in this vintage.

The 2017s From Sonoma From the cooler Petaluma Gap region, the 2017 Chardonnay Jackson Estate Cloud Landing offers more minerality, smoke, charcoal, and stone fruit notes as well as a big, medium to full-bodied, concentrated style on the palate. It opens up nicely with time in the glass and will benefit from 6-12 months of bottle age.

The most expensive Chardonnay in the lineup from K-J is the 2016 Chardonnay Stature. This cuvée comes from the Camelot and Neeley Vineyards (Santa Barbara and Monterey) and was brought up in 45% new French oak. It offers a rocking bouquet of sautéed apples, pears, white flowers, and beautiful minerality. It’s fresh and vibrant as well as rich and textured on the palate, has vibrant acidity, and a big finish. It’s a terrific Chardonnay that will keep for 4-6 years.

Other Chardonnays include the more mineral, Meursault-like 2013 Chardonnay Jackson Estate Camelot Highlands from Santa Maria. This shows notes of hazelnuts, caramelized citrus fruit, a hint of match sticks and wet rocks. It is a complex, Burgundian style of Chardonnay that is completely different than the other wines from Kendall-Jackson.

The grapes for this Californian Chardonnay are grown in a cool climate and gravel soils, with excellent drainage. The 2013 vintage of the Chardonnay Jackson Estate Camelot Highlands is sourced from 40-year-old, ungrafted vines. The wine is then barrel-fermented and matured for 8 months in 50% new French oak barrels. Extremely concentrated and full-bodied Californian Chardonnay: toasted almond and butterscotch from generous oak aging. Aromas and flavours of pear, peach and apple. Pair with roasted chicken or turkey.

The 2012 Chardonnay Jackson Estate Piner Hills offers lots of apple butter, tropical fruit, pineapple and honeysuckle notes. This cuvee sees 24% new French oak and spends 12 months in barrel prior to being bottled unfiltered. Another hugely successful wine, it displays the fruit-forward and luscious extravagance the Russian River can provide, especially in Chardonnay. Drink it over the next several years.

As bright as the sun on sand, this is a beautifully layered wine. There are floral scents of jasmine and narcissus, savory notes of ginger and subtle hints of butterscotch to balance the finish toward sweetness. The wine has powerful length, extending its fresh fruit into lime pith and lime zest flavors. the musculature in the structure will allow for several years' development in the cellar.

Absolutely brilliant, but very limited in production...the 2007 Highland Estates Chardonnay Piner Hills.

Here's a big, sumptuous, fat, oily Chardonnay, massive in tropical fruits, spices, minerals and smoky buttered toast. The creamy texture makes it feel especially rich. Aged in 57% new oak, it's truly decadent - but balanced - Chardonnay.

The 2007 Highland Estates Chardonnay Camelot Vineyard exhibits abundant amounts of pineapple, honeysuckle, and peach along with hints of brioche and caramel. It's full-bodied, luscious finish exhibits a subtle note of oak.

Just might be the best $25 Chard out there. Gorgeous, dramatic and opulent, with a creamy texture and ripe tropical fruit, smoky oak and vanilla flavors. There's a long, honeyed, buttercreamy finish.

Block M is 100 percent clone 4 chardonnay and it delivers on all levels. Sophisticated, rich, elegant and packed full of floral, pineapple, citrus, buttery fruit, with flecks of orange and spice. Fresh toasted bread mixes with a creamy mid-palate and a long smouldering finish. Excellent finesse and length in a 100 percent barrel-fermented (French) oak that is 3-quarters new. Kendall-Jackson is buying and aging its oak before barrel assembly and it shows in the quality of the wine.

Even better is the super-complex 2005 Highland Estates Chardonnay Seco form estate vineyards in Monterey. Made from both the Dijon and Rued Chardonnay clones, it offers up exotic aromas of tropical fruits, spring flowers, and a hint of litchi. Full-bodied with admirable fruit purity and presence as well as a striking minerality, this cuvee saw 35% new oak in its upbringing. However, the oak component in all of these Chardonnays is minimal.

Even better, the 2000 Stature Chardonnay Santa Maria boasts phenomenally intense aromas and flavors of tropical fruits in addition to higher glycerin levels and a rare viscosity. Its pure tropical fruit essence is nicely infused with smoky, toasty oak. These are both sexy, exotic Chardonnays.