A wine this good, priced at $18, makes me wonder what some other people are doing with all their carefully selected Chardonnay fruit. In the case of Melissa Stackhouse at La Crema, she is keeping it brisk and clean. The vineyard sites are all located within 25 miles of the coast and the freshness of this wine, the flavors of pear and peach skin, give it a zest that feels true to that coastal influence. It's layered and cool, a luscious wine for crab.

This is a rich, complex and attractively layered wine that opens with baking spice and black cherry aromas. The palate brings mouthfilling and concentrated black-fruit flavors with lingering dried fruit and cinnamon characteristics. It's a big but well-mannered wine that will cap any occasion with style.

The 2016 Pinot Noir Seco Highlands, which spent 12 months in 25% new French oak, has a vivid ruby/purple color as well as beautiful red fruits and spices on the nose. Strawberries, cranberries, and cherry notes and flow to a medium-bodied, beautifully elegant and seamless 2016 that shows the balance, transparency, and harmony that makes this vintage in California so special. Drink this beauty anytime over the coming 4-6 years.

Lush and spicy nose; smooth, lush and showing smoke, raspberry and savory notes; a bright, juicy and stunning Burgundian wine.

From the cooler Anderson Valley (450m - 540m) region utilising Dijon clones including 828 (36%), which winemaster Randy Ullom tells me the viti guys love, because the bunches stand upright. It immediately put me in mind of Phillip Jones of Bass Phillip fame, who observes a phenomenon he calls 'bunchus erectus' in some of his Pinot vines, and attributes it to bio-dynamics, rightly or wrongly. Candied violets, strawberry and raspberry, light vanilla and spice. Juicy and medium bodied, a fresh tasty wine with light sandy tannin and an attractive chalky finish. Pretty wine that's easy to appreciate, but has complexity and interest too.

Ripe blackberry and cherry fruit with great structure and balance and a long, smoky finish.

Alisos is cool-climate syrah that is 100 percent grown at Los Alamos in Santa Barbara County. Look for an intense red wine, with smoky, floral, peppery red fruit aromas and flavours. On the palate, the wine is meaty, with black raspberry, cherry cola flavours. The attack is round, the textures dense, almost beefy, with super ripe fruit. Alisos is becoming consistently good, year in and year out.

Pours dramatically dark and brooding, with an enormous burst of white pepper, blackberry and coffee and an edge of smoked meat and leather. Huge in the mouth, with masses of blackberries, plums, espresso. Bone dry, thick in sweet tannins, and long on finish. Drink now-2012.

K-J has a way with Merlot, and with this wonderful 2010, they’ve produced a wine that tastes far more expensive than it is. It’s silky on the palate, with wild berry, red currant and persimmon fruits. This could even develop bottle complexity over the next 5–6 years.

Lots of structure in this refined, polished Merlot. The tannins are strong but sweetly ripe, and with the crisp acids, they provide a rich framework to the cherry, cassis, cola and mocha flavors. Dry and elegant, this wine drinks well now should hold for five years before the fruit fades.

Intense, ripe-cherry fruit is the centerpiece of this deep and keenly defined young Merlot, and it is joined by lots of sweet oak spice, suggestions of chocolate and hints of fresh herbs that make for a genuinely complex and involving expression of the varietal. The wine is fairly plush and fleshy in feel as only a good Merlot can be, and, if arguably a little rough and rugged at the finish just now, it asks only for some three to five years of forbearance while it reaches for a fuller measure of supple richness.

The most limited production cuvee is the 2006 Trace Ridge Proprietary Red, a spectacular offering. It's deep ruby/purple color is accompanied by notes of sweet cassis, crushed rocks, licorice, earth, and graphite. Full-bodied and deep, it is another excellent example of what Knight's Valley can produce.

More vibrant than the '01 with anise and herb notes and a lush, chewy texture. Black cherry and spice flavors; long, velvety finish.

reveals loads of complex mineral, tobacco, black currant, blueberry, and licorice characteristics. Medium to full bodied, with sweet tannin as well as a firm, mountain-styled personality that begs for patience, it will be at its finest between 2010-2020.

Already bottled, this wine isn't scheduled to be released until March 2005. If you like your Cabs big, rich and chewy (and who doesn't?) it's never to early to start badgering your retailer or wholesaler to try to get you some of the 613 cases produced. Toasty notes accent dark chocolate and plum scents while intense cassis flavors fill the mouth. Sturdy; try after 2006

Open and complex nose with intense blackberry, cassis jam, tobacco, barnyard, eucalyptus aromas. The wine has a rich mid-palate with intense vanilla, smoky, blackberry, tobacco, and earth flavours and some ripe but noticeable tannin. Long, intense and balanced.

Dark and mouthwatering, this cabernet strikes a natural balance between the juiciness of its plummy red currant fruit and the succulent richness of its tannins. The freshness of acidity plays as important a role as the tannin, creating a transparency to the earthy expression of the wine, ultimately simple but clear and true. Principally grown in Rutherford and Oakville, this cabernet's red and rusty chime of fruit will resonate...

remarkably elegant and polished, with ripe, sweet, juicy plum and wild berry, turning elegant and sophisticated, with a long, detailed finish.

Buckeye cab is mountain-grown, and aged in 82 percent French oak. The nose is sensational. Ripe blackberry, waxy, minty, peppery licorice aromas and some barnyard, blueberry, violet tones. Very rich and round with ripe, soft, chewy tannins. A big, intense hillside cabernet with great character. Very fine value.

A terrific example of the varietal, the wine possesses a black/purple color and a huge, knock-out nose of jammy black fruits, herbs, smoke, and vanilla. Full-bodied, with a opulent texture, this wine will be a crowd pleaser when released in 1996.

USA, California, Northern California: Napa & Some Sonoma New Releases Composed of 100% Cabernet aged 21 months in 48% new French oak, the deep garnet-purple colored 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Jackson Estate Trace Ridge gives a profound nose of crème de cassis, baked plums and chocolate box with hints of black truffes, cedar chest, pencil lead and dried Mediterranean herbs. The medium to full-bodied palate is super structured with a very firm, grainy frame supporting the muscular fruit, finishing long and earthy. Needs time!

Exploring The Best New Releases from Sonoma and Beyond The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Hawkeye Mountain is deep, inky and powerful. Super-ripe dark cherry, pomegranate, mocha, blood orange and menthol infuse this succulent, racy Cabernet from vineyards in Anderson Valley. The Hawkeye boasts striking depth, texture and resonance.

USA, California, Northern California: Napa & Some Sonoma New Releases Made of 100% Cabernet aged 20 months in 43% new French oak, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Jackson Estate Hawkeye Mtn. is deep garnet-purple colored and leaps from the glass with bold blueberries, cassis and Black Forest cake scents plus suggestions of camphor, unsmoked cigars, charcoal and fungi. Medium to full-bodied, firmly textured and delivering bags of vibrant black fruits, it has a lively line and long mint-laced finish.

Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2015 Stature Cabernet Sauvignon delivers intense crème de cassis, baked plums and chocolate box notes with hints of licorice, cedar and bay leaves plus a touch of roses. Medium-bodied, firm and tightly wound, it has a great core of mid-palate fruit with a nice long, perfumed finish.

I also loved the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Jackson Estate Trace Ridge, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from Knights Valley that spent 21 months in 51% new French oak. Black cherries, blueberries, dried herbs, graphite, and loads of gravelly, earthy characteristics flow to a medium to full-bodied, impeccably balanced, elegant 2015 Cabernet that has rocking levels of fruit. Drink it over the coming 10-15 years.