The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyAlong the same lines, the 2017 Pinot Noir Monterey County offers solid notes of spiced cherries, forest floor, and a touch of flowers in its medium-bodied, charming, balanced, nicely textured personality. Want a mid-week Pinot Noir that won't break the bank yet offers real character? Give this a whirl.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyThe 2018 Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands offers a touch more candied cherry, spice, and sappy flower notes in its medium-bodied, nicely textured, rounded profile. It too is a good value.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyReaders looking for a good value for weekly drinking should check out the 2018 Chardonnay Monterey, as you get a heck of a lot of wine for not much buck. From the cooler Monterey region, it has classic notes of buttered stone and peach fruits as well as medium-bodied richness, good overall balance, and a soft, charming, undeniably delicious style.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyCambria Winery Chardonnay Katherine's VineyardThe 2018 Chardonnay Katherine's Vineyard is all Chardonnay that spent 8 months in 20% new barrels. It's a richer, buttery, classic California Chardonnay with plenty of orchard fruit, medium to full body, a creamy, round texture, and a clean, classy finish. It's well done in the style and worth drinking.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyThe value-priced 2018 Pinot Noir Monterey comes from the cooler Monterey County and was brought up in 19% new French oak. Translucent ruby, with pretty cherry and strawberry fruits as well as plenty of spice, it's a sweetly fruited, medium-bodied, charming effort with plenty to love, especially at the price.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyThe 2019 Pinot Noir Rose is a charmer, offering plenty of sweet raspberry and cherry fruits, a touch of orange blossom, medium body, and a rounded, easy drinking, quaffable style.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyAll varietal, the light gold-hued 2018 Pinot Blanc Jackson Estate Santa Maria Valley Nielson Vineyard has a rich, fruit-driven style that carries lots of sweet pineapple, nectarine, and peach notes to go with a nicely textured, rich yet still lively character on the palate. It's certainly a richer style of Pinot Blanc that will do well on the dinner table.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyComing from a site in the Santa Maria Valley, the 2017 Syrah Tepusquet Vineyard has a juicy, peppery, lively style as well as a slightly one-dimensional, cool-climate style on the palate. Drink it over the coming 3-5 years.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyCambria's 2019 Julia's Vineyard Rosé is a pretty, juicy, slightly reductive rosé with bright strawberry fruit, a touch of minerality, medium-bodied richness, and a clean finish. It's a delicious, easygoing effort to enjoy on a hot summer day.

The 65 Best Summer Whites, Rosés and SparklersWinemaker’s Notes: The Tradition Sauvignon Blanc elevates the purity of the variety through stainless steel fermentation and ten months of sur lie aging. The result is an expression of bright citrus such as lime peel, white stonefruit, and green apple fragrances.

This off-dry wine has the right touch of sweetness to balance the crisp acidity and make for a delicious, round wine with stone fruit flavors.

This bright red colored Pinot Noir from Siduri was very popular with the Tasting Panel. It opens with a strawberry and red raspberry bouquet with hints of mentholated red cherry and rose. On the palate, this wine is medium bodied, balanced, smooth, and easy to drink. The flavor profile is a tasty Santa Rosa plum and raspberry blend with notes of craisin, mild pomegranate and integrated mild oak and minerality. We also detected hints of red licorice and green tea. It is pretty complex. The finish is dry and it drifts away nicely. The Panel suggested pairing this very good Pinot with Stuart's lamb pops.

Hand-picked, chilled, whole-bunch pressed, wild fermentation on full solids, no stirring, no mlf, matured in French oak (10% new) for 8 months. The bouquet is slightly funky/reduced, but it's elegance and purity that are the essence of this wine, made by a master of the art.

At the opposite end of the spectrum to its Sexton Vineyard sibling. Elegant, light-bodied and wonderfully fragrant, faintly savoury ex whole bunches, but overall its strawberry, red cherry and pomegranate flavours carry the day on the very long palate.

At 420m Wombat Creek is the highest vineyard site in the Yarra Valley, with a gentle northeast-facing slope of volcanic red soil. The vinification sees the wine bottled by gravity, not fined and only coarse-filtered, as is the case with its siblings. Although the acidity is not adjusted (like its siblings), it feels softer and fruitier, pink grapefruit at work.

A great vineyard producing great wines. Vinified without the use of pumps. The perfumed, flowery (violets) bouquet and a highly focused palate bring whole bunch tannins into play, with a gently savoury finish. Seductive.

Hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed, no additions, wild-fermented in French puncheons (20% new), matured for 8 months with stirring for the first month. A spotless bouquet and an elegant palate of great length. Stone fruits and melon are threaded through a faint gauze of acidity, oak barely seen. This is an exercise in balance, and the certainty of future greatness.

A blend of cabernet, merlot and petit verdot from the single vineyard planted by Phil Sexton in '97. It is of a style seldom encountered in the Yarra Valley, rich cassis fruit cut by finely ground tannins on a long palate. Quite something.

A parcel of fruit from each of Giant Steps' single vineyard sites, whole-bunch pressed to 675l clay eggs for wild yeast open fermentation, the lids sealed with clay for maturation. It's harder to do nothing they say. There's a beautiful pattern in the mouth, reflecting no pumping (just gravity), no fining, no filtration.

This producer may be more lauded for Chardonnay and Pinot, but this Syrah is downright sexy—cool-climate Shiraz at its finest. There's something comforting yet dynamic about the nose, the way it interlaces juicy, pristine plum and berry fruit with violets, licorice and soft baking and earthy spices. The palate is medium bodied with elegance and focus. Taut, powdery tannins slink around silky-textured fruit, and the gently pepper finish is long and fine. Drinking beautifully now but could likely cellar for another decade.

Deceptively light colour and body, but you have to wait until the wine opens its peacock's tail on the finish. As it does so, a wave of red fruits, violets, spices and forest notes flood the senses. Whole bunch vinification is the key.

Identical vinification to its siblings, the intention to place all the emphasis on the site, including its micro-flora. A wine with substance and depth, and a (non-residual sugar) touch of fruit sweetness. I am confident that the individual personality of each sibling will express itself more and more over the next 2 years.