The 2021 La Muse is composed of 90% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc and 4% Malbec, and the wine was matured for 16 months in 95% new French oak. Although it’s youthfully shy on the nose, it can’t hide its jewel-like quality and offers bright flashes of violet, cast iron, cassis, dark plums and blackcurrant bud. The palate is surprisingly light on its feet, its concentrated flavors supported by lacy tannins and bright bursts of acidity. Pure and plush, it opens dramatically over several days and will be very long lived in the cellar. 2,500 cases produced.

The 2021 Le Désir is composed of 87% Cabernet Franc, 10% Merlot and 3% Malbec—Pierre Seillan says it’s the highest percentage of Cabernet Franc this blend has ever incorporated. Matured for 16 months in 95% new French oak, it has an opaque ruby color and very slowly unfolding scents of chocolate-covered blueberries, cast iron, violet, bay leaves and cardamom. The full-bodied palate features transparent, alluringly herbal flavors. It’s structured by clay-textured tannins and bright acidity, and it has a very long, spicy finish. It transforms dramatically over several days and will be epically long lived in the cellar. 2,500 cases produced.

Of this producer's trio of single vineyard Chards, Tarraford is the most immediately lovable and refreshing now thanks to a salt-flecked citrus note throughout. It combines with subtle vanilla, toast, nougat and flint characters. The palate is seamlessly balanced with some weight and power but also lovely lifted acidity and texture.

Offers a very, very serious core of dark, winey blackberry pâte de fruit, plum reduction and boysenberry compote coated liberally with ganache, roasted apple wood and anise notes. Shows a fleshy, velvety edge, but there's a bolt of iron buried here, keeping this ramrod straight through the finish. A long violet echo shows its purity, but patience is required, as the structure is very strident. Best from 2028 through 2050. 883 cases made.

Vivid and brimming with fruit, this offers a deep well of blackberry, boysenberry and mulberry pâte de fruit notes that stretch out lengthily, as graphite, violet, singed apple wood and licorice snap accents add fuel. A focused version, with terrific cut and drive. Showing underlying tension from its rippling acidity, this should age slowly in the cellar while providing a textbook example of a classic Howell Mountain Cabernet. Best from 2027 through 2045. 551 cases made.

This gorgeous red captures the '21 fruit profile beautifully, with vivid mulberry, boysenberry and plum puree notes. The fruit steaks along, carried by a graphite spine, while anise and iris accents fill in. The bright, juicy, focused finish shows terrific underlying tension. This will cruise in the cellar. Best from 2025 through 2045. 701 cases made.

The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Dakota Vineyard was matured for 15 months in 85% new French oak. It has an opaque ruby color and pure, detailed scents of blackcurrant, blueberry, violet and crème brûlée. The full-bodied palate is elegant, with a modest 13.8% alcohol. It’s notable for its polished texture, which offers both plushness and power. Its dark fruit is coiled and mineral-driven at this early stage, yet its very long, violet-laced finish hints at so much more to come. 750 cases were made.

A stunning version, showing wonderful precision. Offers wild strawberry, raspberry and maraschino cherry flavors that are sleek and polished, plus wild fennel, toasted green tea, rose petal and cardamom details. There's a hint of forest floor on the long finish, with dense, velvety tannins. Drink now through 2037. From Australia.

Aromatic and expressive, offering bright notes of cherry preserves, cranberry and fresh raspberry coulis up front on a silky, weightless frame. Yet this red's power comes from its expansive details, with elements of lavender, apple blossoms, clove-spiked orange, oolong tea and toasted cumin lingering on the long finish. Drink now through 2036. From Australia.

The 2021 Ironheart Shiraz aromatically speaks of its élevage in that the oak exudes a toasty, spiced malt-biscuit character that is wholly pleasing and enticing yet present. In the mouth, the fruit proves it is more than a match for its vessel; black pudding and pan drippings, blackberry coulis, dark cherries, squid ink and salted licorice cascade across a tannic foundation that is all about cocoa and drinking chocolate. This is both sybaritic and yet a little edgy: the whole-bunch component—25% this year—emphasizes the rachis of tannin in the mouth. The wine undulates and flows, and it is extraordinarily long through the finish. Not only can you taste the wine, you can feel it too; it is chewy and enveloping. I'd hold off from drinking this for some time; it is fresh and ready now, for sure, but the structure and length of flavor tell us that this will have a long and storied future ahead of it.

Fijnbosch is generally a little richer than the straight Capensis Chardonnay, but especially so in a warmer vintage like 2020. Sourced from two Banghoek vineyards planted in 1996, it has flavours of pear and orange zest, notes of beeswax and lemon butter, toasty 50% new wood and the concentration to evolve in bottle. These wines are becoming more confident with every vintage. 2025-31

Super fine, almost achingly so, like a delicate lattice of glass filaments. There’s a quiet power too, a whispered energy. It’s grapefruit zest and wild honey, a little dripped wax and flint. It shimmers and tingles, rides a wave of diamond-edged acidity and finishes in a cloud of crushed chalk. 

A complex story unfolds along the palate – reflective of the complex plantings of MV6, G5V15, 114 and Pommard clones across the steep Applejack Vineyard, that rises sharply from 180m to almost 300m in the upper Yarra Valley. A moreish juiciness is celebrated thanks to 40% whole-bunch fruit in the fermentation, but the sophisticated flavour profile in this restrained, almost coy expression turns very serious in the back-palate, when a surge of black cherry grunt enters the conversation and leaves you with plenty to contemplate by its powerful closing note.

A cold, wet spring and cooler summer has given power and drive to bright, lively flavours from the high-elevation (200m) Sexton Vineyard. Lifted aromas show dark tones of exotic tropical fruits – grilled pineapple, yuzu and guava – with some fresh grated ginger. The palate entry is focused and tightly bound, although this taut and proud wine benefits from 20% malolactic fermentation and some battonage post-fermentation to add roundness to the mouthfeel. It has exuberance to match its serious power and drive.

This wine is shaped very differently from its predecessors in this vineyard – most notably Eileen Hardy Chardonnay – even though it still features only I10V1 clone fruit. The difference is due to an open-hearted winemaking approach from Melanie Chester, allowing rich fruit notes to relax in a luscious mouthfeel. A quarter of the grapes go through malolactic fermentation to soften any austerity from a powerful acid seam running through the palate. This highly impressive result comes before any significant vineyard improvements by the Giant Steps team at Bastard Hill have taken effect, proving that this single site wine will generate even greater excitement into the future.

The Sycamore Vineyard is an 8.9ha planted site in Rutherford at the base of the Mayacamas, on gravelly clay loam soils that are very shallow, and the vines struggle more, and that tends to make wines of more dried herb character. 93% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Cabernet Franck, and 3% Petite Verdot were aged 26 months in 66% new French oak. So fragrant with the cool mountain garrigue growing around the site, some of the bright green bay laurel notes lend a minty kind of freshness along with loamy earth and dark cinnamon character. Full-bodied with pronounced tannins that winemaker Kristy Melton says are really the result of skin tannin from the berries in 2021, which were about half the size of the berries growing in the Bosché vineyard (meaning very tiny). Plush dark blue and black fruit character is layered atop those robust tannins, framed by toasty oak spices. I would say enjoy this in its youth for its more opulent fruit qualities while the Bosché comes together over time. A very nice effort.

In 1972, the partners of Freemark Abbey had struck a long-term agreement with John Bosché for his Rutherford Cabernet, which had been sold to Beaulieu Vineyard as a component in its flagship Georges de Latour bottling. Since 1970, Freemark Abbey has produced Cabernet Bosché. The 8.9ha Bosché vineyard sits on a gravel bench with a high water table and requires a bit more attention to control vigour. 94% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Merlot were aged 26 months in 66% new French oak. In 2021, the Bosché single vineyard wine is very precise, very focused and has a wonderful linear quality of freshness from the bouquet to the long finish. A firm spine of acidity underscores a bed of taut, firm, and fine-grained tannins layered with red-toned fruits, sandalwood, and notes of cinnamon, clove, and fragrant cedar, all framed by that wonderfully dusty mineral tannin backbone. Quite spectacular.

Downright sexy from first sniff, Applejack evokes wild raspberries, mulberries, crushed roses, summer herbs and sweet-savory-earthy nuances like hoisin sauce-glazed mushrooms. It glides across the tongue like glycerin, buoyed by the midpalate with a lick of tart berry acidity, and tugged by savory, cat's tongue tannins. Well-developed now, it could evolve further for another eight to 10 years. 

Sexton is the richest of the trio of single vineyard Yarra Chards. Medium gold in hue, it opens with opulent aromas of caramel, gingersnap, citrus and mushroom. Its generosity on the palate is brightened by lovely, unforced acidity. Long, with a mineral note creeping in amid the more polished oak-and-lees characters, this drinks nicely now but should evolve beautifully over the next several years and until 2034.

Pronounced aromas of fresh, juicy black currant and beet juice, with cloves and a briny olive note behind, open. The mocha-like oak shows a touch too. There's succulence and fruit concentration to the palate. It's weighty but balanced by tangy acidity. Fine, well-tucked tannins add structure and food-friendliness. You could drink it now, but it will greatly reward patience as it evolves over the next 10 to 15 years.

The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Montana Vineyard was matured for 15 months in 85% new French oak. It has an opaque ruby color and unfurls slowly on the nose, segueing from soy sauce, tar and Chinese five spice to red and black cherries and aniseed. The full-bodied palate is most notable for its Goldilocks ripeness—it sits at a modest 13.6% alcohol—and its youthfully coiled flavors are streaked with spice and iron tones. It has an exceptionally powdery texture and bright acidity, and touches of herbs and flowers emerge on the long, latent finish. 990 cases produced.

The Ovitelli Grenache is fermented and matured in ceramic eggs, the Hickinbotham Grenache in cocciopesto stone amphora and the High Sands Grenache in old oak. The maturation vessels largely define the personalities of the wines—the vineyards too—and so the differences between them are stark. I like this 2022 Hickinbotham Grenache, as it gives permission for us all to "have a favorite" without declaring one is necessarily better than another. Here, the fruit is from Clarendon (hence Hickinbotham, the other part of Jackson's Family Wine Estates in McLaren Vale) and has an inherently darker register of flavor and tannin. The fruit was destemmed and crushed prior to its 150 days in amphorae, and this seems to emphasize the licorice and wet asphalt, petrichor and black tea, black olive tapenade and caper brine. Bitter amaro herbs are profuse in this wine, with dried rosemary and thyme, orange peel and tobacco, old rose petals and blood orange acidity. As this wine opens up in the glass, it is knitting together admirably, leading me to suggest that time in a decanter is a necessary action. Gritty tannins through the finish complete the picture. 14.5% alcohol sealed under screw cap.

Subtle nutty notes mingle with lime blossom and fresh pear. Very silky, very fine, with a beautiful velvety texture. Acidity is deep set, and has some subtle textural notes providing interest on the palate. Gently saline. Very long – and should age with interest. Their oldest Roussanne vines, hand-picked, fermented in ceramic eggs. Half was fermented on skins and remained on them for 120 days before pressing. All matured for four months in ceramic eggs before bottling.

Exotic spice woven through vibrant fruits. Some slightly earthier elements too: porcini powder, candied beets. High notes of bergamot and white pepper. It moves with a slippery momentum, plush fruit pulled along by gently buffed tannins and a precise acid line. Complex, composed and a harbinger of great things to come.

During my tasting with winemaker Kristy Melton in July of 2024, she unveiled this brand-new wine for the Freemark Abbey portfolio. There has not been a new single-vineyard Cabernet in the Freemark Abbey portfolio since 1984, until this Colline Vineyard bottling. Sourced from blocks at the front of the Cardinale property on the east side of Highway 29, in the same bale clay loam soils as To Kalon across the street. 100% Cabernet Sauvignon aged 26 months in 66% new French oak. A very pure, dark fruit character resonates in the glass, nuanced by expressive graphite minerality and that fragrant oakville garrigue of sagebrush, along with elegant cedarwood notes. Full-bodied with a wonderful core of inky black fruit framed by superfine-grained tannins that coat the palate, resolving with lovely savoury notes of black liquorice, black olive, a hint of violets and charcuterie. Very polished. This will remain the portfolio moving forward with an annual production of around 500 cases. In its debut 2021 vintage, only 100 cases were produced due to low yields.