This midnight purple colored Cabernet Sauvignon from down under opens with a black cherry bouquet with hints of cola, leather and oak. On the palate, this wine is full bodied, balanced, smooth and savory. The flavor profile is a smoky oak influenced black currant with notes of coffee. We also detected hints of blueberry and black olive. The finish is dry and its flavors and moderate tannins show nice length. The Panel thought this Cab would pair well with a New York strip steak.

13 West Coast Pinots at 90+ Points New reviews of elegant reds from California and Oregon Lush and packed with vibrant cherry, raspberry and red plum flavors that feature toothsome forest floor notes. Engaging minerality and rich spiciness show on the finish.

Deep red/purple colour with a ripe plum and spice bouquet, rich and deep and layered. A full-bodied, solid wine with masses of firm tannins and the potential to reward keeping. (Off dry-grown vines planted in 1946. 50% whole berry and whole bunch)

This is an especially good release of this highly likeable shiraz. It’s so vibrant, has such good volume, and has such a good refreshment factor. Wins all the way along. Plums, cherries and cloves, a spot of hay, florals maybe. It slips down a treat. It’s a ‘more please’ wine.

Weighing in at a robust 15.5% alcohol, this is nonetheless a rather refined Zinfandel, offering ripe berry fruit, fine peppery spice and a whiff of herb, tamed down wild berry character and an agreeable splach of chocolate.

Edmeades is not your plump, jammy hedonistic, old-school zinfandel. Instead winemaker Dave Ready Jr. has stuck to Edmeades’ conservative style that is well-made and food-friendly. Berries and plum elements dominate in this very well-balanced table wine.

Well-balanced and energetic, with flavors of herbs and sweet-tart red fruits. Best value, 2½ stars.

60 Second Wine Review — Copain Syrah The Wine High intensity nose–mix of blue and blackberries, violets and lots of pepper spice. On the palate, the spice carries through and brings a smokey element like hickory BBQ. The fruit is still present with medium-plus acidity giving a mouthwatering quality. Ripe medium-plus tannins hold up the medium-plus body fruit and are quite velvety at this point. Long finish introduces some stony mineralty. The Verdict The cool-climate Syrahs I tasted at this year’s Hospice du Rhône rocked my world and this Copain continues the trend. It’s very Northern Rhone-like with mouthwatering savoriness that compliments, rather than gets overwhelmed by, the dark fruit notes. At around $40-45, this is a very character-driven wine that is drinking at its peak.

Wines Of The Week: Unexpectedly Age-Worthy Bottles A deeply evocative nose that rings through with flowers and honey precedes a creamy palate of grapefruit pith, honey, honeysuckle, fennel bulb, and perfectly ripe summer stone fruit. The long finish leans in a slightly salty direction, lending this expressive Sauvignon Blanc a captivating sense of savoriness.

10 Best Wedding-Day Rosés, According to Sommeliers This is a very special wine for Cambria’s winemaker Jill Russell—it’s her very first wine released in the marketplace as the winemaker for this storied Santa Maria Valley winery. She loves to say this rosé was made with intent, started during the growing season by identifying two blocks of Pinot Noir that she felt could produce the style of rosé she enjoys drinking. To achieve this, she left a heavier crop than what was done for their Pinot Noir wines to create bright fruit flavors and structure. After blending, the wine was fined and filtered, which resulted in a balanced yet juicy rosé with a beautiful pale pink color. Expect to taste notes of strawberry, watermelon rind and grapefruit with a sip of this dry, yet crisp rosé with the perfect balance of acidity and texture.

What to Drink Next: Trust These Names in Wine It’s a safe bet that most of the millions of fans of Kendall-Jackson’s Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay don’t realize exactly how many wineries this Sonoma-based family (now headed by the late Jess Jackson’s wife, Barbara Banke) owns. The answer is 40, making wines from $13 a bottle to almost $400. The secret to their sustained quality? The family’s seemingly unerring eye for winemaking talent.
 Upgrade: 2015 Brewer-Clifton Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir
 $40 Co-founder and winemaker Greg Brewer’s deft touch is a huge asset, as shown in this spicy, fragrant Pinot.

A blend of Cabernet Sauvignon Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot! Dense purple in colour with a cedary, lightly floral nose of plum and blackcurrants with cedary, spicy notes. Full-bodied, dry with black fruit flavours and a firm tannic finish.

Great Wines for your Summer Party

Next up was the Alcance Carmenère 2014. Sánchez started by questioning how the grape could have been confused with Merlot in Chile for so long. His own experience has shown how very different the two grapes actually are from both the appearance of the leaves and the grapes and even more telling the difference in the ripening schedule. He mentioned that the Merlot is typically harvested in mid to late March while the Carmenère is picked in the middle of May, over a month and a half difference. He discussed how he finds the grape somewhat difficult to work with as picking too early can create a wine with heavy green notes and despite his best efforts it can also have a bit of a hollow feeling mid-palate that requires an added bit of Cabernet Sauvignon for more substance. I found the wine to be nicely spicy with no green notes, primarily aromas and flavors of ripe blackberries with a black pepper note through the lengthy finish. This wine was also sourced from the El Maitén Estate Vineyard.

Our next pour was the Alcance Merlot 2015 from the El Maitén vineyard in the Valle del Maule. This vineyard area lies west of Talca, the region's largest city. Sánchez stated that this growing area has clay-rich soils that Merlot loves. The wine itself is gently treated with only 10% seeing 18 months in new French Oak resulting in a lighter, fresher style of Merlot bursting with dark plum character with a soft, lush finish. As we tasted, burrata with grilled peppers, eggplant, olives, and tomatoes on pesto with pita bread arrived to the table.

As the final wine, the Alcance Vigno Carignan 2014, was poured, seared lamb chops with sautéed arugula and savory bread pudding arrived for the entire group to taste alongside. Sánchez shared that Carignan was commonly grown in the Valle Del Maule in the 1940s. He stated that the variety is even mentioned in historical Chilean wine books from over a hundred years ago though no one is sure who originally brought the vines over. He founded an organization that includes fourteen high quality growers called the VIGNO Association of Chile with the goal of promoting old vine Carignon that has been head pruned and dry-farmed. Sánchez oversees fourteen acres of Carignan that are approximately 50-70 years old. The wine was definitely a welcome surprise for the table with its light floral nose with juicy red berry flavors, refined tannins, fresh acidity, and a lingering finish. It was a perfect pairing with the lamb chops.

Long-established wines are classic for a reason ...speaking to the Jacksons’ global reach, I recently discovered their gorgeous Alcance wines from Chile. Winemaker Andres Sanchez, a Santiago native, presented his chardonnay, merlot, cabernet and carmenère, all under $20, plus two special bottles, the Bordeaux-style Bravura and the Vigno. The latter is a 100 percent carignan made from grapes grown on 50- to 70-year-old vines. Priced at about $35 (wine.com), it’s the most surprising, intriguing wine I’ve tasted this year.

The next pour was the Bravura 2013. This proprietary red blend's name means courage in Spanish though it takes no bravery to enjoy this wine.The label was inspired by a Chilean dance. Though the nose was a bit austere, the wine had good structure with a a nice freshness and dense tannins with a persistent mixed berry finish. The wine is a Bordeaux blend that is sourced from the highest quality areas of the Maipo Valley Estate, it is only produced in the best years and always in limited quantities.

Like This, Try That: Bordeaux Edition Chile, you say? Okay, so this choice might be bending the rules a bit, but hear us out. Alcance’s Bravura Red certainly takes inspiration from Bordeaux, but consider this wine Bordeaux’s wilder, more demonstrative cousin. It’s 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, so there’s the black plum, blueberry, chocolate, and cedar you expect, but the addition of the long-last Carmenere and splash of Petit Verdot introduces a “what was that?!” factor that’s tons of fun. There’s an herbaceousness and salinity that evoke alfresco, family-style dinners under trees draped in fairty lights. Each sip makes you want to sit on the porch and laugh with friends as the kids chase lightning bugs. It demands a grilled steak but would be equally happy with a muffuletta. As with most bold Bordeaux blends, this wine could use a few more use to mellow and come into its own. Grab a few bottles and drink them a few years a part. It’s fun to see how these wines evolve, and how our own tastes develop too.

My red pear salad with red lettuce, bleu cheese, dried cranberries, candied walnuts, and pomegranate in balsamic vinaigrette arrived as the Alcance Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 was poured. This 100% Cabernet Sauvignon comes from their El Principal Vineyard in the Maipo Valle. This wine exhibited classic Cabernet aromas and flavors and was definitely ready to drink now. The gentleman across the table from me had ordered the red corn chicken enchiladas, a Backstreet Cafe favorite, which comes with corn pudding and green beans, which he was kind enough to share with me as he was enjoying it so much with the wine.

This rich and elegant Chardonnay is grown on granitic soils in a coastal mountain vineyard in the Valle de Itata. Despite my multiple wine classes, this was a growing area with which I was not familiar. This vineyard is located between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean about 12 miles from the coast which as Sánchez pointed out adds a nice sea influence to the wine. The Chardonnay was pleasantly fresh with light citrus notes and a touch of butterscotch with a distinct saline mineralty throughout the slightly creamy finish.

What To Drink Now: White Wines Under $25 Though best known for red wines, Chile’s Alcance ($20, wine.com) began producing Chardonnay in 2015 highlighting the diversity of the rocky, granite-filled soils creating character-driven wine.

Great Wines for your Summer Party

A new direction for McLaren Vale wine ...In the case of this svelte delight, the winemaker has preferred to keep that pale blanc-de-noirhue by rigidly limiting the duration of skin contact, a method which also stops short of extracting much phenolic tannin from the skins, keeping that juice as fresh and fine as possible. This is assisted by picking early, before the skins ripen fully. The result is an alluring aroma that avoids the usual overt, even brash raspberry/redcurrant/cranberry characters. Instead it offers a distinctive agave/prickly-pear juice finesse after that delicious cactus fruit adored as the heart flavour of spring and summer by the Maltese since they were Phoenicians...

Undiscovered Melbourne still surprises and delights My favourite course? Okay, if I’m forced to choose, then the Cape Grim beef from north-western Tasmania, served with mushrooms, charred baby onions, dried lactose and a glass of concentrated Yangarra PF 2017 Shiraz from South Australia’s McLaren Vale.