Spot-on in terms of Sauvignon Blanc’s distinctly herbal personality right from the first but with a good bit of fruit keeping it from becoming too stridently weedy, this firmly balanced middleweight is charged with plenty of cleansing acidity and stays in keen focus from front to back, and, if never so stiff and rigid that it cannot be enjoyed on its own, it is a wine that is sure to show at its best when poured with food. 1 star.

Wild ferment, whole bunches, whole berries, classy oak but only where it’s needed.
That beautiful sweet fruit. That texture like silk. That perfect integration of plum-shot fruit and posh, cedar-like oak. It smells, taste and feels pure, fine-grained and terrific, every step of the way. Drink 2018 - 2028

Ultra-pale dusty pink colour. High-toned aromatics of candy floss, red apple, juniper and rosewater. The palate is brimming with musk, strawberry and sherbet. Incredible intensity of flavour, particularly on the front palate. Zippy and intense. Made from bush-vine grenache. Certified organic/biodynamic. Drink 2018 - 2019

Ripe blackberry and dark plum aromas, peppery and earthy too, intense and concentrated; clean and lightly spicy. The palate is full-bodied and elegantly-structured, with refinement and linearity. Very attractive flavours, big on mixed spices. (10% whole-bunch; 50% whole berries; wild ferment. 5, 530 cases) Drink 2018 - 2030

Essency, slightly inky, concentrated plum juice aromas, the palate full-bodied and rich, deep and dense, with black fruit, spices and toasty, nutty overtones. It has some extractive thickness on the back-palate, and needs more time. (465 cases. 25% whole bunches, 50% whole berries. wild ferment) Drink 2020 - 2033

What happens when a pinot noir guy gets his hands on some syrah? Well, just like with the pinots, you get elegance, purity and balance but not without ignoring the great intensity of cool-climate syrah. It's not like Mr. Brewer was a syrah novice: He made several excellent renditions when he was at Melville. Raspberry, dark plum, smoked meat, candied violets and some welcome florals on the nose. Dark fruit complexity on the palate with plenty of savory influences. Very supple, accessible and easy to drink, this bottle will disappear from your table in record time.

10 cheap wines that will fool your friends into thinking you bought an expensive bottle One of the signature red grapes of the California wine country, Zinfandel produces a relatively light-bodied wine with dark fruit flavors, a vibrant deep-red hue, and relatively-high tannins (compounds inside grape skins that add structure and complexity to wine). California Zins can cost a pretty penny, but it's definitely possible to find a tasty bottle for under $20. Reed Robertson, the general manager of Shearwater Tavern in Maui, has an emotional attachment to Edmeades Mendocino Zinfandel, a fruit-forward red with cinnamon and clove notes from the Northern California coast. "When I think of wines that I personally love, it's usually because they're not only delicious, but they remind me of great times. Edmeades Zinfandel is the very definition of that for me. It's what my friends and I would drink after work at our group table [when we were] coming up in the restaurant industry. I remember that the restaurant I worked at at the time was going to switch over to a different Zinfandel, and all the servers bought the remaining bottles [of Edmeades] and kept them in our lockers so that we could continue to have them at our after-work family meals. Sharing a great wine was what it was all about!" Robertson explained.

Want to know what chardonnay really tastes like without all the bells and whistles? Mr. Brewer apparently persuaded his friends at Cambria Vineyards to sell him some fruit from Katherine's Vineyard. Treating the grape source with utmost respect, the wine sees no oak (all stainless steel) and does not go through a secondary (malolactic) fermentation that might impart a buttery creaminess. The result is a steely, mouthwatering white wine that cries out for food. Lemon, lime, green apple and minerality on the nose, it's very distinct and straightforward. Vibrant and focused in the mouth, it's structured with flavors of citrus and apple as well as a bit of peach and nectarine. Let it warm in the glass and you will experience unexpected levels of complexity and a rounded mouthfeel for such a steely wine. Bring on the raw oysters!

Pinot Noir Masters 2018: Gold

Following up on my last column, we had covered four wines from our tasting at the Spire Collection. Here are the final five we enjoyed… We finished, counter-intuitively one might argue, with the lone white wine of the tasting, the 2014 Capensis Chardonnay from South Africa. (I discovered that I appreciated doing the white last – another red after the heavy Napa wines would have been a bit much.) Perhaps realizing that excessive new French oak will overwhelm a good chardonnay with too much buttery taste, Capensis’ winemaker wisely aged the wine in a 50 percent blend aged 10 months in 100 percent French oak, 41 percent new. The result was a tasty wine that delivered tastes of banana on both the nose and palate. As I’ve said before, Terry’s sensory abilities far outstrip mine. On the nose, she got grass, grapefruit, pineapple and banana. She tasted grapefruit, banana, and toned-down butter. The Capensis is very balanced with a slightly acidic finish.

From a single vineyard adjacent to Clos Pepe, this bottling has great aromatics of cherry, rhubarb, mint, cinnamon, florals and a panoply of exotic spices. You will need to decant the wine to get the full effect. On the palate, blackberry, dark cherry and boysenberry augmented with sage, underbrush, mint and green herbs. Admittedly more full-bodied and concentrated than the entry-level wine above. The purity of the fruit flavors are paramount but all the other spice and herb components are perfectly integrated. Perhaps whole cluster fermentation (with the stems) adds a lot of nuance.

Root beer, sassafras, cola and wet autumn leaves on the nose. On the palate, red cherry, red raspberry and cranberry plus a certain Santa Rita Hills earthiness coupled with wild herbs. Drawn from three vineyards, this blend is big-boned but not overtly heavy. It's refreshing with its lovely concentration of fruit and herbs but firm on the finish with a good backbone of tannins and acidity. This entry-level pinot is quite a bargain.

A blend of four Santa Rita Hills vineyards, this entry-level chard shows citrus, peach, nectarine and kiwi on the nose. Noticeably absent is the sometimes typical runaway pineapple express aromas. On the palate, lime, melon and pear fruit flavors are augmented by ginger, jasmine, almond, nutmeg and minerality. Still taught and tightly wound right now, it nevertheless opens up in the glass. Lush and full-bodied but chiseled in its flavor facets. By the way, I recently had a bottle of the 2010 vintage from my cellar and it was just singing. Case purchases will reward you down the line; it only gets better with some age.

Celebrity Rosé: Whose Should You Drink This Summer What’s the deal? Drew herself describes it as “peach and apricot. Grapefruit-forward. Without any sweetness. Enough citrus to keep it crisp. No stinging lemony aspect that can come into an acidic wine.” That’s some genius analysis. She should be on our next wine-tasting panel. How’s it taste? Relaxed and springy, not syrupy like other similarly-priced rosé—it’s nice and dry. All of us dug it (and remember, we didn’t know it was Drew’s at the time). One editor said, “It goes down easily, and flows through my body. An experience.” Another said she could “drink it all day.” The only criticism, from three different editors, was that it didn’t taste terribly substantial, like it was “watery.” Overall, though, this was one of our favorites of the pack. Best quote from a tester: “Without knowing whose this is, it tastes like Drew Barrymore’s flower crown.”

What to Drink Now: Savory Summer Red Wines Though Cabernet Sauvignon is always going to be a standard go-to wine for Texans, here are a few lighter options to enjoy now through the fall. (Some selections were sent for editorial consideration.)… Cabernet Franc shines as the dominant variety in Tuscany’s Arcanum ($75, wine.com) with wild rose and ripe red fruit when young, but when aged the wine takes on the earthiness of the rolling Tuscan hillsides their fruit thrives in with black fruit, anise, and a forest floor quality that makes it ideal for pairing with roasted pork dishes.

What to Drink Now: Savory Summer Red Wines Though Cabernet Sauvignon is always going to be a standard go-to wine for Texans, here are a few lighter options to enjoy now through the fall. (Some selections were sent for editorial consideration.)… Cabernet Franc shines as the dominant variety in Tuscany’s Arcanum ($75, wine.com) with wild rose and ripe red fruit when young, but when aged the wine takes on the earthiness of the rolling Tuscan hillsides their fruit thrives in with black fruit, anise, and a forest floor quality that makes it ideal for pairing with roasted pork dishes.

What to Drink Now: Savory Summer Red Wines Though Cabernet Sauvignon is always going to be a standard go-to wine for Texans, here are a few lighter options to enjoy now through the fall. (Some selections were sent for editorial consideration.)… Cabernet Franc shines as the dominant variety in Tuscany’s Arcanum ($75, wine.com) with wild rose and ripe red fruit when young, but when aged the wine takes on the earthiness of the rolling Tuscan hillsides their fruit thrives in with black fruit, anise, and a forest floor quality that makes it ideal for pairing with roasted pork dishes.

Following up on my last column, we had covered four wines from our tasting at the Spire Collection. Here are the final five we enjoyed. Ryan Hughes then presented a great opportunity to compare and contrast. He poured us the 2014 Anakota Dakota Vineyard and the 2014 Anakota Montana Vineyard side-by-side. Both vineyards are in Knights Valley. Dakota runs southeast to northwest; Montana is northeast to southwest. Robert Parker preferred the Dakota to the Montana, rating them 98 and 93, respectively. I agreed with his assessment while Terry flip-flopped on the two. I got eucalyptus and berry on the nose, finding some tasty tannins that need a lot of air time to make it approachable. The Montana, for me, featured heavy tannins that will take considerable cellar time to dissipate. As is to be expected, my bride disagreed with me. She found the Montana smoother and less tannic. We concurred that both wines had blackberry and black fruit on both the nose and the palate. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the strong tannic presence in both wines. Pierre Seillan, Anakota’s winemaker, also crafts one of Spire’s crown jewels, Verite. I’ve always found hulking tannins in Verite that do mellow after 10 years, akin to fine Barolos, some of which need 30 years before they are drinkable.

Following up on my last column, we had covered four wines from our tasting at the Spire Collection. Here are the final five we enjoyed. Ryan Hughes then presented a great opportunity to compare and contrast. He poured us the 2014 Anakota Dakota Vineyard and the 2014 Anakota Montana Vineyard side-by-side. Both vineyards are in Knights Valley. Dakota runs southeast to northwest; Montana is northeast to southwest. Robert Parker preferred the Dakota to the Montana, rating them 98 and 93, respectively. I agreed with his assessment while Terry flip-flopped on the two. I got eucalyptus and berry on the nose, finding some tasty tannins that need a lot of air time to make it approachable. The Montana, for me, featured heavy tannins that will take considerable cellar time to dissipate. As is to be expected, my bride disagreed with me. She found the Montana smoother and less tannic. We concurred that both wines had blackberry and black fruit on both the nose and the palate. I shouldn’t have been surprised by the strong tannic presence in both wines. Pierre Seillan, Anakota’s winemaker, also crafts one of Spire’s crown jewels, Verite. I’ve always found hulking tannins in Verite that do mellow after 10 years, akin to fine Barolos, some of which need 30 years before they are drinkable.

Wine of the Week: Rosé all day It only makes sense that a region that makes world-class pinot noir would also produce a world-class rosé made from pinot noir. The inaugural vintage of the 2017 WillaKenzie Estate Rosé from the Willamette Valley in Oregon sets a high bar. It offers up plenty of ripe red strawberry and citrus-centric aromas on the fragrant bouquet, and lightly textured flavors of bright red berries, cranberry, and watermelon that’s perfect for a hot summer day. The high acidity and minerality keep the wine refreshing and bright on the finish. A delightful match with seafood and rotisserie chicken; perfect for a picnic.

Weekend Wine Another Rosé to the Rescue Oregon’s WillaKenzie Estate Rosé is one of my favorite new pink wines. This is their first vintage of pink, but it doesn't seem like a run-in with the dreaded low-color red grape. It sure tastes like they mean it. The watermelon and honeycrisp apple aromas added to the dry, velvety mouthfeel make this an ideal wine with all sorts of summer fare from burgers to fried chicken. But it also has the tannic grip to stand up to pasta or pizza with a big, acidic tomato sauce.

Cabernet Sauvignon Masters 2018: Gold

Rich texture with noticeable oak and ample peach/lemon curd flavors. Vanillin oak with some citrus notes.

Cool off with a glass of sauvignon blanc I found a number of good everyday values that tend to be lighter with the focus on varietal fruit... 2016 Murphy-Goode The Fumé tangy, smooth.

Following up on my last column, we had covered four wines from our tasting at the Spire Collection. Here are the final five we enjoyed… Next up was the 2014 Mt. Brave Cabernet Franc. Strong berry on the nose, the taste was fruity (boysenberry) and quite approachable. Also detected aromas of saddle and tastes of smoked meats. Very enjoyable.