It's beginning to look a lot like bubbles This is the inaugural sparkling release from this Oregon winery, and it will be bottled once a year. A blend of multiple vintages, with pinot noir taking a slight edge over chardonnay in the composition of the wine. Pear, honeysuckle, rose petal and brioche on the nose leads to flavors of citrus and stone fruit on the palate. Tangerine, nectarine and strawberry are prominent in the flavor profile while the pinpoint acidity holds it all together to make it seductively well-balanced all the way to the stylish, upbeat finish.

The Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide for Wine Lovers From Yamhill-Carlton district in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, this sparkling rosé, a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, displays a spectrum of flavors---honeysuckle, nectarine, wild strawberry, brioche-- and a vibrant finish. Made from Gran Moraine vineyard estate grapes in méthode Champenoise and aged on its lees for two years, the wine is crafted as a blend of multiple vintages and possesses precision and finesse.

The palest baby pink in the glass with very fine bubbles, this wine smells of bright berries and citrus peel. In the mouth, wet stone flavors mix with forest berries and a hint of watermelon amidst a silky mousse. Nicely balanced with a faint sweetness, this is exceedingly easy to drink. 12.5% alcohol. Score: between 8.5 and 9.

60+ high-end wines: Our 2018 guide to prices, flavors … The rich, creamy and delicious 2015 Gran Moraine Pinot Noir ($45, Ore) has black fruits and a long finish. …

Wine Press: 10 Wines Worth Splurging On This Holiday Season After spending the last paragraph extolling the virtues of blended red wines, I sure didn't waste much time contradicting myself. This single-grape, red wine illustrates everything I love about Pinot Noirs from Oregon. This wine has a rich, earthy finish bursting with fruit flavors yet still manages to be very dry. No wonder so many winemakers from France's Burgundy region (the Holy Land for Pinot Noir worshipers) have been snatching up land here and growing Pinot Noir grapes in the Willamette Valley. Truly a great, delicious wine which should developed and blossom with age.

Soft, juicy, elegant and fruity with tart aromas and flavours of cranberry, pomegranate and cherry. A touch of leather, earth and dried herbs. Very soft tannins and a juicy finish. Think tuna tartare, fried oysters and baked salmon.

The Perfect Christmas Wines For The Holiday Season Think creamy, peach yoghurt, vanilla brioche and floral notes of daffodil. On the palate, enjoy a creamy, rounded texture with flavours of fresh melon, lemon curd tart and peach crumble. A mouth-wateringly good combination of both oak and acidity create an incredible balanced and seriously good wine!

15 wine gift ideas for any budget Everyone knows that Oregon’s Willamette Valley is a source of world class Pinot Noir. Chardonnay thrives there too, but it remains a bit of a secret weapon, as not everyone realizes how well it does. This one is from the Yamhill-Carlton appellation. Granny Smith apple aromas lead the charge here. The palate is simultaneously full-flavored and proportionate. Orchard fruit and bits of green tea are evident on the palate. Minerals and subtle white pepper drive the long finish. Firm acid keeps this Chardonnay refreshing and remarkably food friendly.

Wines of the Week The “stone temple” at the corner of Highway 29 and Lodi Lane in the Napa Valley is the historic Freemark Abbey Winery. During my early wine years in the 1970s, the winery was venerated for great wines and an indomitable spirit. It was the only winery to have both a Chardonnay and Cabernet included in Steven Spurrier’s 1976 Judgement of Paris tastings. Drink this wine for its rich and spicy aromas, plum, dark cherry and toasty oak, and for its structure and balance on the palate.

Top 100 American Wines of 2018 - #31

Napa Valley’s Extraordinary 2016 Cabernets - Part 1 The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon (Howell Mountain), all from Keyes, is dark and explosive on the palate, with tremendous thrust and intensity in all directions. Crushed rocks, menthol, crème de cassis, dark chocolate, pencil shavings and cured meats race out of the glass. Dense and potent, the 2016 has a very bright future ahead of it. The Howell Mountain is a wine of gravitas and pure power.

Napa Valley’s Extraordinary 2016 Cabernets - Part 1 Huge swaths of tannin envelop the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon (Mt. Veeder). Iron, smoke, blood orange, cedar and tobacco add aromatic nuance to this sinewy, nuanced mountain Cabernet Sauvignon. The 2016 is a bit stern next to the other Lokoya Cabernets in the early going, but it has plenty of depth and resonance in its fruit waiting to emerge over time.

Napa Valley’s Extraordinary 2016 Cabernets - Part 1 The 2016 Cardinale is distinctly aromatic and nuanced. In 2016, winemaker Chris Carpenter built Cardinale around a core of Spring Mountain fruit. Perhaps for that reason, Cardinale is a bit more refined in the early going than is often the case. Silky, fine-grained tannins and mid-weight structure frame expressive dark cherry, plum, chocolate and new leather, but it is really the wine's overall feel that stands out most. A dollop of Merlot adds to a feeling of openness in this super-expressive Cardinale from winemaker Chris Carpenter. A range of sites in Stags Leap, Howell Mountain, Diamond Mountain, Mt. Veeder and St. Helena round out the blend.

Bright purple color. Needs time to open up, but has lovely aromas: showing blackberries, dark currants, plums, concentrated but lovely fruit, with complex notes of sweet pipe tobacco, mint, eucalyptus, black tea, vanilla. Full-bodied, structured but so velvety and suave, medium acidity keeping it vibrant. Blackberry, cassis, plum, mixed with a complex host of roasted chestnut, espresso, tobacco, mint, charcoal, earth and mineral. Complex, long-lasting, this could be buried and forgotten for a long time but gorgeous and polished young. A blend of fruit from 12 different vineyards across Napa Valley, with a focus on Mountain fruit, this includes 10% Howell Mountain Merlot. This is aged 20 months in 84% new French oak.

Washington Wine Blog Top 100 of 2018 - #16 The massive wine is a blend of 88% Cabernet Sauvignon and 12% Merlot. This wine opens with a bouquet of coffee grounds, creme de cassis and dried herbs with a touch of blueberry cordial. This has a marvelous tension and weight. Creme de cassis, anise, mocha, blueberry compote and sandalwood flavors show impressively. The combination of weight and tension is marvelous here. Try to resist this gorgeous wine for at least another year.

The nose is a polished and bright red berry, camphor, chocolate and dusty spice. The palate entry is polished yet shows well-integrated acidity built to age for two decades. Elegantly balanced with notes of blossom, wood spice, camphor, clove and dense blackberry.

Crowd-Pleasing Budget Wines Winemaker Chris Carpenter also authored the spectacular La Jota Merlot, from the other side of the Napa Valley, from this excellent vintage. The Mt. Brave is equally stunning but a bit more suave and approachable, showing a note of cedar and wood spice on the nose, ripe black fruits on the palate and uncommon balance for such a big wine. The finish is long and memorable.

Napa Valley’s Extraordinary 2016 Cabernets - Part 1 The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon (Diamond Mountain) is fabulous. Dark, powerful and explosive, the 2016 is endowed with terrific energy to play off its strong mineral and savory signatures. Crushed rocks, gravel, grilled herbs, smoke, cured meats and lavender are finely drawn in this imposing, impeccably balanced, Diamond Mountain Cabernet. This is a remarkably vivid, poised Cabernet Sauvignon from Lokoya and winemaker Chris Carpenter. The Diamond Mountain Cabernet is sourced entirely from Wallis, which the Jackson family bought a few years ago.

Crowd-Pleasing Budget Wines Forget everything you've ever been told about the softness and approachability of merlot. La Jota's Howell Mountain merlot is a beast of a wine that delivers layers of ripe blue fruits, chewy tannins and the heft of a Napa Valley cabernet. This vintage shows notes of wood spice, graphite and cedar, with impressive heft and length. It's built for the long haul, and it would benefit from additional cellar time.

Concentrated, exotic and almost earthy, this wine from a single vineyard in Anderson Valley has a wild edge of smoked fruit, singed rosemary and black pepper, with a core of deep black-cherry and clove flavors. It is full-bodied, mouthfilling and layered, with nuances that continue to unfold on the evolving finish.

Napa Valley’s Extraordinary 2016 Cabernets - Part 1 The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon (Spring Mountain) is supple, silky and remarkably pure, with striking nuance to match its soft contours and plush fruit. Resonant and enveloping, with terrific depth, the 2016 is striking today. The Spring Mountain is the most open and inviting of the Lokoya Cabernets, but ideally readers should give it a few years in the cellar, which will allow the full range of aromatics to develop.

GrapeLive: Wine of the Day December 25, 2018 – Merry Christmas Greg Brewer’s Diatom 2017 Hilliard Bruce Vineyard is all Chardonnay clone 96, sourced from a steep, ultra cool climate north facing slope on the western border of the Sta. Rita Hills AVA that makes for an acid and mineral intense version that almost has Raveneau like presence in the glass, but with a touch more generosity on the palate, more perfumed with citrus blossom rather than hazel nut, impressive non the less. The severe ocean winds influence the land, Brewer notes, adding that the sand and gravel characterize the soil profile that transmits purply into this vibrantly expressive Chardonnay from one of California top winemakers and Chard masters, who’s best known for his efforts at his Brewer Clifton and his work at Melville Estate. I love all these 2017’s, but this Hilliard Bruce Vineyard shows a beautiful harmony between the bright minerality of site with the rounder mouthfeel characterized by this clone. Brewer’s approach to Diatom is to dig down to the purest form of Chardonnay he can, I like to think of it as a zen like focus that captures the grape in a vacuum, with the fermentations down at very low temperature in small stainless-steel tanks, or Innox, coupled with inhibited malo-lactic, so no cream or butter distractions, and short hose transit ensure precision and ultra sharp detail. This is wildly amusing and intellectually intriguing Chardonnay with ripe flavors, but with steely crispness, at 14.5% natural alcohol there is mouth feel and expansion on the vibrantly electric palate with fresh citrus, green melon and white peach notes along with wet stones, liquid mineral and tart herb, lemongrass, quince and hint grapefruit zest. The wine rounds out with warm and time in the glass revealing a touch of honeysuckle and lime. Ultra pale, clean almost devoid of color except for a faint greenish gold, the Diatom Hilliard Bruce Vineyard 2017 is an awesome if not super geeky Chardonnay that takes its style to the extreme, beware this is polar opposite to mainstream barrel aged Chard, and as I curious and adventurous wine professional I find it massively exciting and thrilling, though best with briny dishes, white fish, mussels, claims and especially oysters, drink over the 2 to 5 years.

Washington Wine Blog Top 100 of 2018 - #78 The 2015 Brewer-Clifton ‘Machado’ Pinot Noir is a simply sensational effort from this storied property. A saline whiff comes connected with the delightful feminine aromatics of rose petals and red cherry candy on the nose. Substantial on the palate, with a gorgeous salinity, the wine shows wonderful poise, richness and terroir. A long aged, this has the stuffing to cellar over the next fifteen years.

100% whole cluster fermented and aged in older barrels. Aromas of tilled soil and desiccated rose petals precede strawberries and delicate nuances of floral brush.

Top 100 Wines of 2018 - #63 The 2014 Helena Dakota Cabernet Sauvignon is a completely fascinating wine from Pierre Seillan. The Cabernet fruit was sourced from the 12.4-acre Helena Dakota vineyard, which runs southeast to northwest and possesses slopes of up to 15 degrees. The vineyard benefits from the westerly winds, which pass over a large, cold pond and blow uphill in a direction parallel to the rows of vines, and slow down the ripening of the grapes. The result is a gorgeous wine which displays a dark, opaque color and begins with profound aromatics of ripe blackberries and black currants laced with roasted coffee, spices, loam and well-integrated lightly scorched oak all bursting from the glass. On the palate this is full-bodied with a gorgeous opulent texture as well as remarkable concentration and depth. Everything is kept well balanced from start to finish and the beautiful touch of underlying acidity provides jest enough lift to guide this through the long, supple finish. Overall, this is a flat-out delicious Cabernet, and while it is just about impossible to resist today, the future for this fantastic Cabernet looks even more promising.