Immediately on the nose, there is a beautiful freshness, more of the classic Merlot leafiness, like freshly picked berries. The texture is plush, silky, packed tannins that have melted into each other to create spongy layers of goodness. The flavours are reminiscent of plum compote with a hit of spice and premium baker’s cocoa nibs. The intensity of youth is just beginning to fade to a more harmonious, elegant adulthood. The finish is long, concentrated and lasting, leaving the palate perfumed with red fruit and rose petals.

Since 2001, Anakota has made two single vineyard, single variety, single appellation estate cabs: Helena Dakota, and Helena Montana. Helena Dakota is a 12.4-acre block of vines sited below Mount St. Helena’s two highest peaks at 750 feet elevation. It is an ancient volcanic zone, with reddish-brown, gravel/silt loam soils intermingled with volcanic rock, well suited to the main Bordeaux grapes. This year I tasted it alongside its El. 950 Feet Helena Montana Vineyard sibling. The differences are subtle, but Helena Dakota exhibits more generosity and elegance and a less rugged mountain character. The fruit is black and spicy, with some mineral savoury chocolate streaks and dense but sweet tannins. Winemaker Pierre Seillan is the master of balance, and this wine has it all from front to back.

Extremely floral and subtle red fruit, such as redcurrants. Medium-to full-bodied with tight, caressing tannins that lead you down to the finish. Tight and reserved. Shows finesse and beauty. Lovely to taste now, but it will be so much better in three or four years. Drink after 2022.

Seeing 20/20 – Sonoma & Anderson Valley New ReleasesThe 2017 La Joie is another gorgeous wine in this lineup. Deep, pliant and nuanced, the 2017 is impeccably balanced. Silky and plush, La Joie is especially refined in 2017, and that complements its mid-weight structure so nicely. Hints of rose petal, lavender, mint and blood orange add brightness. The 2017 is a stunning wine by any measure.

Seeing 20/20 – Sonoma & Anderson Valley New ReleasesThe 2017 La Muse is 100% Merlot for the first time. In this vintage, La Muse stands out for its freshness, energy and red-toned fruit. It will be interesting to see if the 2017 represents a longer-term shift. To be sure, the 2017 is aromatically deep, beautifully persistent and just impeccable in its balance. I liked it more than the 2016.

This drips with cassis, plum, açaí berry and blueberry fruit. The display is nearly exotic, quickly harnessed by deeply embedded brambly grip and a mouthwatering iron note that extends through the long finish. A youthfully coiled wine that should cruise in the cellar. Best from 2025 through 2040.

Features a deep well of cassis, steeped blackberry and warmed plum reduction flavors at the core, slowly unwinding to reveal streaks of graphite, alder and smoldering tobacco on the finish. Muscular but defined, with a deep tug of earth, this should cruise in the cellar. Best from 2024 through 2042.

From Block 30 (2ha) planted '46 adjacent to the High Sands Block. Hand-picked, destemmed, mechanically berry-sorted, crushed, fermentation and 138 days on skins in 675l ceramic eggs, pressed and returned to the eggs for a further 6 months maturation. Clear, bright crimson, it is 100% fresh and firm, almost to a fault. If this is an issue, all you have to do is watch its triumphal march over the years in your cellar.

Comes solely from a single 1.8ha block, wild yeast-open fermented with 25% whole bunches, 75% destemmed and mechanically sorted fruit, matured in French oak (35% new) for 15 months. Rich, complex and mildly tannic, its balance assuring those tannins will settle down and thereafter serve to assure development of the wine.

USA, California, Napa Valley: More 2016s The deep garnet-purple colored 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Christopher's Vineyard has the most gorgeous perfume of lilacs, blueberry pie, dark chocolate and cassis with touches of menthol, underbrush and unsmoked cigars plus a hint of pencil lead. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is built like a brick house, with super firm, ripe tannins and seamless freshness suporting the taut, muscular fruit, finishing long with a touch of spiciness coming through. 406 cases were made.

Aromatic, creamy, classic, pure red fruit flavours with vibrant, smooth textures that envelope your palate from front to back is the short story. It’s 14.5 percent alcohol, but you feel none of it amid the savoury mix of minerals and fruit. What makes this so attractive is the exquisite use of not noticeable oak, adding texture and mouthfeel with only the lightest of exacting tannins. Grenache doesn’t get a lot of love from wine critics, but this one should change a few minds about the real potential of this grape variety. Brava Mr. Fraser. High Sands is 100 percent estate-grown grenache from Blewitt Springs, McLaren Vale. Its gnarly old bush vines were planted in 1946 at the highest point of Yangarra’s white/grey dunes at 210 metres above sea level. Block 31 is 1.7 hectares of dry-farmed 70-year-old bush vines sitting on the deepest sand with the lowest vigour and yield. The vineyard is certified biodynamic. Famed winemaker Peter Fraser employs a wild yeast ferment for the hand-picked fruit and spends 11 months maturing in older French oak. It’s bottled with no fining and light filtration.

Wine for the cellar Vigneron Pierre Seillan recalls that of his 49 vintages, 2015 was the first where picking began in August, the 31st to be precise. The harvest lasted 12 days, and while yields were low, the grape quality was outstanding. La Muse presents as youthful with floral, stony mineral aromas. The mix is 90 per cent Merlot, seven per cent Cabernet Franc and three per cent Malbec. Look for a super-rich, round, savoury Sonoma style with fresh blackberries, sliced apple flavours and an amazing silky texture. The mid-palate is awash in baking spices, bits of chocolate and more smoky, savoury licorice and black cherry flavours. It’s the supple nature of this wine that makes it of so attractive. It’s more like Masseto than Petrus, but either way it is in good company.

I don’t usually like it when a wine is defined as being like another wine that exists halfway around the world. But damn, if I had had this wine blind, I most certainly would have guessed it was a white Burgundy. The utter richness spiked by starbursts of minerals…the through-line of fresh acidity…the voluptuousness modulated by tautness...the earthy sensuality. It all added up to: Burgundy. But Gran Moraine is in the Willamette Valley, and (like a few of its neighbors), it’s making serious chardonnays that are knock-outs. The dramatic rise in the quality of Oregon chardonnay over the last few years is still largely an untold story. But try this and see for yourself. Hedonism in a glass anyone?

Tasting a Twelve-Year Vertical of the Napa Valley-Based Blend The Cardinale Rule Blackberry and bramble berry with dark chocolate and pencil shavings. Wants time.

Tasting a Twelve-Year Vertical of the Napa Valley-Based Blend The Cardinale Rule A spectrum of berries: red, blue, and black plus gravel. Big yet polished tannins. In one year, this will be damn near perfect.

Tasting a Twelve-Year Vertical of the Napa Valley-Based Blend The Cardinale Rule A bit of spice here. Black currant and capsicum are the loudest of the flavors, but also boysenberry and violet. So much happening in a very graceful way.

Tasting a Twelve-Year Vertical of the Napa Valley-Based Blend The Cardinale Rule More blackberry. Rich yet silky; great height with a full tannic push. Drinks big! Warm but stays cool and dry on the lips. A wonderous marvel. Acidity keeps kicking in.

James Halliday On The 2020 Cabernet And Family Varietal Winners A dense crimson verging on opaque. Merlot's postcode waft of leaf and plum is present from the first whiff. The tannins are more gentle than cabernet, sure, but far from shy, expanding with time in the glass and stamped by 21 days on skins, daily pumpovers and three rack and returns. The oak, synergistic with a regime that sacrifices nothing when it comes to attention to detail, is sourced from Bordeaux coopers of the highest tier (25% new; 15 months). As good as any merlot on these shores.

James Halliday On The 2020 Cabernet And Family Varietal Winners Hand-picked, berry-sorted and extracted regally with the thrice rack and return culture applied to alleviate reduction while maximising lees to juice contact across 15 months in Bordeaux wood, new and 1yo. The result is a full-bodied cabernet of currant, brush, sage, leaf, bouquet garni and olive, bound to a strong tannic weave, all needing time to unravel. And unravel it will.

The colour is deep red/purple, the bouquet fresh and highly aromatic, spicy and lifted, red cherry, raspberry, mixed spices - a terrifically detailed fragrance. It's medium-bodied and elegantly formed, with fine-grained tannins that are perfectly matched to the lighter weight of this vintage. An utterly delicious medium-bodied shiraz, intense, long and satisfying, but a far cry from traditional McLaren Vale shiraz off the flats.

Merlot (70%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (30%) are sourced from Bennett Valley’s best sites as well as from blocks within the winery’s estate vineyard. A Petrus clone of Merlot was sourced from the sloping benchland site, known as Jackson Park. This is an ageworthy red by winemaker Marcia Torres Forno, who has crafted the label since 2010. The nose is fruit-expressive with cherry and plum skin, both bright and inviting. A whoosh of plush liquid follows, leaving cherry-skin tannins in its wake. Juicy, then dry: Sip and repeat.

Enticing aromas of ripe red cherry and alpine strawberry are fruity but elegant on the nose, lifted by touches of rose petal and hibiscus. The palate offers pure flavors of boysenberry and black plum alongside touches of fennel, nutmeg, mace and a pinch of curry. It is very complex and vividly fresh.

Aptly named, from block 31 atop (at 210m) a biodynamically farmed Blewitt Springs bush vine vineyard planted in 1946 on deep white sand over clay. Intricately layered with al dente red cherry and bilberry fruit, perfumed five spice, red liquorice and bloody iron. A wash of mineral-sluiced acidity and pithy, sandpapery tannins extends the finish. Aged 11 months in seasoned French oak; bottled unfined. Sinew, spice and all things nice.