Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Jackson Estate Hawkeye Mtn. has an intense nose of crushed black cherries, red and black plums and black currants with touches of scorched earth and grilled meats, plus hints of sandalwood and a waft of violets. Medium-bodied with compelling restraint and elegance in the mouth, it has a fine-grained texture and long finish with lingering earth and mineral notions.

Even better, and sourced from three different mountaintop sites, the tiny production 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Jackson Estate Hawkeye Mountain spent 21 months in 41% new French oak. It’s a serious effort, offering medium to full body, a layered, pure texture, and terrific notes of black cherries, cassis, cedary herbs, and lead pencil. It’s capable of lasting for over a decade.

Kendall-Jackson’s Jackson Estate bottling is a giant step up from their other Cabernet Sauvignon offerings, presumably because it comes from a more rigorous selection of their grapes. With more character and complexity, it mingles olive-tinged and herbal savory elements with a dark plum or cassis-like fruitiness. Kendall-Jackson’s hallmark suave tannins are present and add welcome balancing firmness. Finishing slightly bitter, there’s excitement with each new sip.

Over the past decade or so K-J has moved into uber-premium California wines in a big way, yet the concept of value hasn’t been completely abandoned. The 2014 Grand Reserve Cabernet is a case in point. This is a superb Sonoma County Cab that delivers in a big way but at a price well below the competition. Richly layered with notes of blackberry and cassis, a splash of wood spice and beautifully integrated tannins, it’s a stunning California Cabernet at less than $30 a bottle.

Longtime K-J winemaker Randy Ullom has done wonders with the Vintner's Reserve program, consistently crafting impressive wines despite the significant volumes. The 2014 Vintner's Reserve Merlot is an excellent example. Well balanced and refined, it has an elegant mouthfeel, is very dry and shows nuances of red currants and plum, with a touch of wood spice and beautifully integrated tannins.

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Most wine lovers recognize the Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve line of wines, ubiquitous in grocery stores across America. The K-J Grand Reserve wines are often overlooked, yet should not be, because they deliver a more complex, rewarding drinking experience, a huge step up from Vintner’s Reserve. Grand Reserve winemaster Randy Ullom has access to outstanding-quality grapes from K-J’s extensive vineyard holdings and produces blends that are greater than the sum of their parts. The result is a Cab with aromas and flavors of forest floor, cedar, cassis, black plum, vanillin and dark chocolate. Inviting savory aromas lead to a fresh, brisk mouthful of beautifully ripened red cherry, dark berry and plum flavors, with supple tannins providing a smooth finish.

Plump and juicy, deftly balanced and supple in texture, with pure plum and blackberry flavors at the core, showing touches of cherry, currant, anise and cedar around the edges. Ends charming and graceful, with fine-grained tannins.

Alexander Valley Cabernets trend to taste sumptuous, with supple tannins and round, lush textures. They invariably carry a hint of sweetness, so provide unabashed pleasure more than intellectual sophistication. All that is true of this wine, but it surprises with unexpected seriousness and depth, making it a wine for many a different moment. You don’t need to ponder it, but you can. And there’s no doubt that you’ll enjoy it.

With its array of seductive black and red berry fruits and firm, substantial texture this is an irresistible Cabernet Sauvignon indeed. Invigoratingly dry and muscular, it is also blessed with considerable charm. A touch of Petit Verdot adds even more complexity, and velvety tannins further enhance the long finish.

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One of the many highlights in this range, the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Jackson Estate Trace Ridge bursts from the glass with tons of Knights Valley personality. Game, smoke, cedar and savory herbs add nuance to a huge core of dark fruit. The 2012 is going to need at least a year or two to settle down as the tannins are imposing, but there is plenty to look forward to. This is an impressive showing.

From the steep Sonoma slopes of Mount St. Helena comes this tannic, concentrated young 100% Cabernet. Dramatic in structure and flavor, with massively packed blackberries, dark chocolate and pain grillé. the wine was aged in 49% new oak, which adds smoky, spice overtones.

Beautifully soft and limpid. So pretty and polished now, with ultrafine tannins framing ripe, dry flavors of black and red cherries, currants, chocolate, herbs and smoky sandalwood. Dramatic and opulent, this 100% Cab was aged in 40% new French oak.

A knock-out effort is the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Mountain Mt. Veeder. Mt. Veeder can produce extraordinary wines, but it is apparently a tricky area in which to work. However, those who get it right seem to produce some of the finest Cabernet Sauvignons outside of the Oakville Corridor. This dense ruby/purple-colored 2006 exhibits aromas of blackberries, blueberries, cedar, incense, graphite, and spice. It is big, rich, well-balanced, long, and heady.

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.