This medium purple colored Zinfandel opens with pencil lead and black raspberry cobbler bouquet with hints of stewed black plum and vanilla. On the palate, this wine is medium bodied with medium plus acidity. The mouthfeel is round, balanced, and crisp. The flavor profile is very fruit forward, featuring juicy red plum and graphite along with notes of chalky minerality and red raspberry tea. We also detected hints of oak, cinnamon, and pepper. The finish is dry, and its flavors and dusty tannins are nicely prolonged. The Tasting Panel would pair this big boy Zin with your favorite steak taco or with a steak pizzaiola.

This dark ruby colored Cabernet from Kendall Jackson is very good. It opens with a black cherry and blackberry bouquet with a hint of peppermint and dark chocolate. On the palate, this wine is medium bodied with nicely integrated acidity. The mouthfeel is round and balanced. The flavor profile is a mineral influenced black currant with notes of oak and blackberry. I also detected some hints of blueberry and cola. The finish is dry, and its fine tannins and flavors fade away nicely. This Cab would pair nicely with a filet mignon.

A barrel sample of the 2012 Cenyth, which has a whopping 56% Cabernet Franc, 28% Cabernet Sauvignon and 16% Merlot in the blend, looks sensational. This was a generous year in terms of yields, and Seillan said virtually everything came in in terrific shape. It is just a question of culling out the best lots. A dense purple color is followed by abundant notes of black currants, blackberries, camphor, charcoal and creme de cassis, along with a full-bodied, opulent mouthfeel, a broad, savory texture, sweet tannin, adequate acidity, and a long finish displaying impressive purity. This beauty should drink well for 15 or more years.

Another sensational barrel sample is the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Réserve Spéciale, which is all Cabernet that will see 32 months in just over half new oak. As with the other top releases here, it’s a vineyard and cellar selection. Offering lots of sweet oak, cassis, lead pencil, and floral notes, it’s medium to full-bodied, silky, and downright seamless, with awesome purity. Give it 2-3 years of bottle age and enjoy over the following two decades.

Savory herbs, tobacco, smoke, iron and dried flowers form a striking tapestry of aromas and flavors in the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Speciale. Delicate and understated in the glass, the 2012 impresses for its exceptional overall balance and pure pedigree. This is another wine with a very bright future.

Bright, deep ruby. Extremely primary nose hints at cassis, espresso and bitter chocolate; this is about as evolved as a Bordeaux during the Primeurs tastings six months after the harvest. Then surprisingly plush and rich, boasting superb volume and sappy verve to the black and blueberry, coffee and mocha flavors. The balance of sweetness and acidity is exhilarating. Strong underlying minerality gives shape and lift to the ripely tannic, very long finish. Splendid potential here. I tasted both this wine and the 2012 Montana from tank.

Medium ruby-red. Superripe aromas of red berries, coffee, tar and tobacco, with an exotic hint of blackberry liqueur. Rich, dense, large-scaled and chewy but quite dry, with very ripe berry, chocolate and licorice flavors. Lush, seamless and sophisticated. Finishes very long and ripe, with smooth, melting tannins.

Good deep ruby color. Youthfully austere aromas of black fruits , licorice, shoe polish and maple syrup. Dense, rich and very deep, with sappy flavors of liqueur-like black fruits. This has remarkably lush texture for a cabernet-based wine. The finishing flavors reach every nook and cranny of the palate and go on and on.

The 1999 Merlot (a blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, with 84% of the wine coming from Sonoma and 16% from Napa) is extravagantly concentrated, with a layered, expansive mid-palate, and a blockbuster finish. The wine is out-and-out massive with spectacular levels of fruit and glycerin. The basic characteristics are lavish richness (cassis, coffee, chocolate galore) and a low acid, multitextured, flamboyant finish. In short, this is an amazing wine. It should be drinkable young, but with an uncommon ageability of 20-25 years. This wine, which Seillan calls wine without compromise, is aged in 100% new French oak for about 13 months.

The 2013 Le Désir is once again alluring. Le Désir is quite powerful and intense, but it also has fairly soft contours for the year. Dark cherry, plum, smoke, chocolate, mocha, licorice and cloves are all pushed forward. Energetic and explosive, the 2013 is going to need at least a few years in bottle to settle down, but it has plenty to offer. I tasted the 2013 from tank just prior to bottling.

The 2013 La Muse is wonderfully vivid and expressive from the outset, especially in the aromatics. Graphite, smoke, lavender, menthol and licorice are all super-expressive. Those notes carry through to the palate, where the wine is dense, powerful and bursting at the seams with energy. Hints of mocha, chocolate, spice and leather add the final shades of nuance. Today, La Muse is the most expressive of Vérité's 2013s, with plenty of floral and savory notes that add complexity to the super-rich dark fruit. I tasted the 2013 from tank just prior to bottling.

The 2008's are strong efforts. Given the fact that Vérité's wines often perform better out of bottle than they do from barrel, this may be another powerful, long-lived vintage. The 2008 Le Desir (61% Cabernet Franc, 31% Merlot, and the rest Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon) is the lightest to its siblings, it offers up notes of bouquet gami, licorice, red and black currants, cedar, and background oak and earth. Full-bodied and rich, it will offer early drinkability, and should last for 25 years.

Good full ruby. Reticent but pure aromas of dark berries, minerals, licorice, spicecake and lead pencil. Supple and spicy but not overly sweet, with excellent intensity and a graceful quality to the vibrant dark berry and violet flavors. Finishes firmly tannic, floral and long, with noteworthy verve. This combines alcohol of 15% with a moderate pH of 3.62.

Good bright, deep ruby. Aromas of blackberry, violet, espresso, bitter chocolate and maple syrup. Sweet, broad and extremely primary, with black fruit and espresso flavors framed by well-integrated acidity. Finishes very long and chocolatey, with building tannins.

Full medium ruby. Superripe aromas of chocolate, leather, gunflint, coffee and menthol. Sweet, large-scaled and superripe, with a sappy freshness for such a lush, rich wine. Finishes very long and aromatic, with the tannins nicely supported by the wine's huge material. Winemaker Seillan considers the young 2002 to be more elegant than the 2001.

The 2015 La Muse comes across as intensely primary at this stage. Inky black fruit, licorice and sweet spice infuse this racy, flamboyant Merlot-based wine. The flavors are remarkably primary today, and the new oak needs to integrate, but the 2015 holds considerable promise. Of the three Vérité wines, the Merlot-based La Muse is the most unpredictable in how it shows as a young wine.

Saturated ruby to the rim. Aromas of blueberry, black cherry, menthol and licorice. Inky, dry and backward, with medicinal briary berry flavors. A hugely structured wine that finishes with a boatload of tannins. This massively constituted wine grew sweeter and more pliant as it opened in the glass. This may well develop in bottle for 15 to 20 years.

Bright ruby. Aromas of black raspberry, coffee, chocolate, licorice and spicy oak. Less sweet and more penetrating than the 2001, with gripping flavors of dark berries, licorice, menthol and chocolatey torrefaction. Today this is behaving more like a Pauillac than the 2001. Firmly tannic, strong and long on the aftertaste.

Deep ruby. Cassis, violet, licorice and espresso on the nose. Intensely flavored and sharply delineated, with lovley early sweetness and excellent volume. Powerful flavors of berry liqueur and violet. Winemaker Chris Carpenter uses 100% new barrels that he describes as soft. The wine's tannins, he says, come entirely from the fruit. Finishes firmly tannic and very long. A very strong showing.

The 2015 Chardonnay Three Jacks Vineyard comes from four separate clonal selections – old Wente, Rued, Dijon 95, and a clone called 15. This is a beautiful, fat, almost premier cru Meursault-like wine with its hazelnuts, smoked almonds, white peach, honeysuckle and waxy, fleshy fruit. This rich, full-bodied wine is very impressive. Drink it now-2024.

The 2019 Lassegue is a blend of 58% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. It is being aged in French oak barrels, 75% new. Displaying a deep garnet-purple color, the nose explodes with pristine, fantastically well-defined notes of Morello cherries, black raspberries and crushed black plums with hints of menthol, Sichuan pepper, cinnamon toast and red roses plus a waft of garrigue. The medium to full-bodied palate gives layer upon layer of elegantly styled black and red fruit flavors, supported by exquisitely ripe tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long with loads of baking spice and floral nuances.

A lighter-weight La Muse (and probably the least intense since the 2000), this blend of 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc (61% from the Alexander Mountain Estate, 21% from Chalk Hill, 11% from Bennett Valley and 7% from Knight's Valley) is an elegant, fresh, lively wine offering up notes of berry fruit, crushed rocks, spring flowers, forest floor, coffee and roasted herbs. This sweet, round 2010 should be seductive early in life as well as one of the fastest developing La Muse cuvees to date, drinking well during its first 15 or so years of life.

There are generally 2,000-3,000 cases produced of this Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot blend, one of the flagship offerings in the Jackson Family Farms umbrella. The black/purple-colored 2002 Cardinale boasts a sweet perfume of vanilla, blackberry and currant fruit, roasted herbs, licorice, and Asian spices. Full-bodied and chewy, with considerable power, low acidity, and tremendous ripeness, this big, thick, juicy 2002 should hit its prime in 5-6 years, and last for two decades.

The 2020 Château Lassegue is another brilliant Saint-Emilion in the making. Offering a full-bodied, rich, textured, and at the same time pure and precise style on the palate, it has classic notes of ripe black cherries, charcoal, crushed stone, and truffly earth. Emerging from the home estate of Pierre Seillan, who’s the force behind the Verite wines in Sonoma, this beautiful 2020 is going to require just 2-4 years of bottle age yet keep for 15+.

Deep purple-black colored, the 2020 Lassegue needs a little swirling to begin, to unlock bright, cheery scents of fresh blackberries, black raspberries and redcurrants, plus hints of black cherry preserves, charcoal, woodsmoke and underbrush with a waft of tapenade. The medium to full-bodied palate has a firm structure of ripe, rounded tannins and just enough freshness to support the generous black fruits, finishing long and earthy.