From a high-elevation vineyard that was replanted in 2006, the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain reveals an opaque purple color as well as notes of mulberries, graphite, blackberries and a hint of charcoal. This dramatic, ostentatious 2012 is in keeping with the stylistic characteristics of this vintage. Multidimensional, stunningly pure and rich, it is a beauty that flirts with perfection. Drink now-2032.

The nearly perfect, inky/purple-colored 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Mt. Veeder boasts abundant aromas of blueberry pie, ink, violets, burning embers, and camphor. The staggeringly intense, provocatively complex aromatics are followed by a full-bodied wine with exquisite concentration as well as a stunningly pure texture. One of the most prodigious 2007 Cabernets I tasted, it should provide magical drinking in 5-6 years, and last for three decades or more.

Napa Valley: 2007 Retrospective - Napa's Turning-Point Vintage Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder features an incredible perfume of potpourri, baking spices, charcuterie and forest floor with a core of ripe red and black plums, blackcurrant cordial and black cherries plus a hint of violets. Full-bodied, very tightly knit and incredibly youthful, the concentrated fruit flavors reveal a myriad of earth and mineral accents with a rock-solid, grainy texture to support and a very long, lively finish. Give this beauty another 4-6 years in bottle and then drink it over the next 25+.

Knocking on the door of perfection is the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder from the Veeder Peak Vineyard. The volcanic rock and sandy soils seem to always provide something that winemaker Chris Carpenter crafts into a compelling Cabernet Sauvignon. With an opaque, bluish/purple color as well as blackberry, blueberry, licorice, incense and floral notes, this is a multidimensional, blockbuster Cabernet Sauvignon, with sweet tannin, adequate acidity and staggering depth and power. It can be drunk now as well as over the next two decades. Bravo!

The 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Diamond Mountain is the best showing yet of this wine (which I originally rated 94). Close to perfection, it exhibits a first-growth Pauillac-like bouquet of cedarwood, creme de cassis, licorice and lead pencil shavings. This dense purple-colored, full-bodied 2002 reveals a fabulous texture, a multilayered mouthfeel, tremendous purity, and an exuberance and flamboyance that are unbelievable. Its great length of 45-50 seconds offers up a vibrancy and energy that must be tasted to be believed. These wines are all naturally fermented with indigenous yeasts and are aged in 100% new French oak (which is totally concealed by the lavish amount of fruit). This 2002 is still a young adolescent in terms of development, with at least 25 more years ahead of it.

Absolutely prodigious, the 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain was fashioned from the Keyes Vineyard (formerly known as the Liparita Vineyard) owned by the Jackson family. A fabulous perfume of crushed rocks, a liqueur of raspberries, black currants and cherries, and a background floral note emerges from this intense, full-bodied Cabernet. It possesses impressive equilibrium, a skyscraper-like texture and a finish that goes on for nearly a minute. There is plenty of tannin remaining in this youthful 2001. It is a stunning, statuesque, compelling Cabernet Sauvignon from a high elevation, cool climate Howell Mountain vineyard that should age effortlessly for another quarter of a century. Winemaker Chris Carpenter, who has worked for the late Jess Jackson for many years, hit pay dirt at Lokoya in nearly every vintage. Certainly these 2001s have aged magnificently over the last decade. These 100% Cabernet Sauvignons are aged for 18-22 months in 100% new French oak and are bottled with no fining or filtration.

North Coast Part 1: Napa Valley’s Incredible 2016s A tribute to the great Merlots of the world, the 2016 Merlot W.S. Keyes checks in as 77% Merlot and 23% Cabernet Sauvignon, and unfortunately, there’s only a tiny amount made. This inky colored beauty offers a huge nose of black cherries, currants, graphite, licorice, crushed rocks and new leather. It's rich, powerful, concentrated and layered, with terrific acidity and freshness, building tannin, and incredible length. It’s a tour de force in Merlot that will benefit from short-term cellaring and keep for 20-25 years or more.

Another huge, yet elegant Chardonnay, the 2015 Chardonnay Seascape Vineyard boasts a deeper gold color to go with a powerful, deep bouquet of buttered citrus, tangerine, baking spice, and awesome salty minerality. With full-bodied richness, a layered, seamless, incredibly pure and precise texture, and a huge finish, this is another incredible Chardonnay from this team. The Seascape Vineyard is located on a panoramic ridge-top west of the town of Occidental facing Bodega Bay and the Pacific Ocean, and this 2015 was barrel fermented and aged 16 months in 42% new French oak.

2013 will definitely go down as one of the greatest vintages in Freemark Abbey's storied history, with this wine joining the Bosché and the regular Napa Valley bottlings in the stratosphere. Contains 5.4% Merlot, 5.7% Cabernet Franc and 3.9% Petit Verdot. It's all here and then some -- blackberry, cassis, cedar spice, baker's chocolate, mild dried herbs -- all presented with depth and complexity, and finishing together. As the firm structure subsides, this will be worthy of more than a one hundred point score in my book. Awesome wine.

A flagship wine -- one of Napa Valley's heritage wines -- that simply stuns with depth and staying power with the 2013 vintage. Classic in every sense of the word, it's a wine that I hesitate to give a list of descriptors on. If you'd like to taste a true benchmark wine of the region, this is a great place to start. I dare say it's a bargain at this price. Ted Edwards has been doing this for a long time, and this might be his ne plus ultra moment. Spectacular!

Superb purity of fruit with crushed blackcurrants and flowers. Full-bodied with a creamy and stony texture. The fine, powdery tannins provide wonderful length and intensity. Great potential. Could be better than the 2019.

Tasted as a tank sample and made from 87% Cabernet Franc, 11% Merlot, and a splash of Malbec, the 2021 Le Desir is highly aromatic at this stage and opens to wild and savory aromas of black and blue fruit, with a mineral-tinged lift. Gripping in structure, it’s long on the palate with savory richness and the feel of a rugged landscape. Massive structured, while having reined in alcohol levels, this is going to be another one to lay down for some time.

Tasted as a tank sample, the 2021 La Muse is 91% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, and a splash of Malbec. It’s loaded with attractive ripe fruit, graphite, and lots of flowers. Offering ripeness as well as incredible structure, it has nothing heavy or heated about it. With alcohol levels at 14.2%, it’s unquestionably going to improve with significant age, so it will probably be best to stash this away for quite a few years before it reaches its peak drinking window. Scheduled to be bottled In February 2024, it’s showing the potential to be a truly stunning wine.

A barrel sample blend of 80% Cabernet Franc, 15% Merlot and 5% Malbec, the 2020 Le Désir has an opaque ruby-purple color and slowly unfolding scents of blueberries, plums, mint chocolate, braised meats and cast iron. The palate is lifted and restrained, with bright freshness, powdery tannins and a violet and iron-laced finish.

An already blended barrel sample of 82% Cabernet Franc, 12% Merlot and 6% Malbec, the 2016 Le Desir has an inky purple-black color and gives up expressive, complex notions of kirsch, wild blueberries, cassis and black raspberries with touches of wild thyme, baking spices, baker’s chocolate, Marmite toast and beef drippings. Medium to full-bodied and built like a brick house in the mouth, it has a rock-solid foundation of very firm, ripe, grainy tannins and just enough freshness to lift the densely packed black and red fruit layers, finishing on a lingering mineral note. This should be very, very long lived!

Seillan said that 2015 (which was still in barrel at the time of my tasting) was the finest vintage of his lifetime, which is strong praise indeed. Certainly, he has three titanic wines aging in the wine cellars. The 2015 La Joie (75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot) has an intensity that is off the charts, and that’s saying something, given how concentrated these wines tend to be. An enormous, colossal example of wine, with an opaque purple color and an intense nose of black fruits, camphor, forest floor and graphite, the wine is super-pure, very full-bodied, with intense levels of glycerin and richness. The finish goes on for a good 60+ seconds. This should turn out to be utterly profound. Anticipated maturity: 2020-2050+.

Seillan said that 2015 (which was still in barrel at the time of my tasting) was the finest vintage of his lifetime, which is strong praise indeed. Certainly, he has three titanic wines aging in the wine cellars. If you want to taste something that is like Château Ausone on steroids, check out the 2015 Le Désir, a blend of 64% Cabernet Franc, 26% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec. This huge, ripe wine offers incredible balance, a black/purple color, a stunning nose of crushed rock, white flowers, blueberries and blackberries intermixed with incense and a forest floor component, and an extraordinary integration of tannin, acidity, wood and alcohol. This magnificent wine should age effortlessly for 35-40+ years.

Sourced from a single block of the estate Veeder Peak Vineyard (1,800 feet above sea level), Lokoya's 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder boasts plenty of cedar, bay leaf and cherries on the nose. This wine shows a more linear nature than the other Lokoya bottlings, being full-bodied but streamlined, velvety and concentrated, with a long, richly textured finish.

Medium ruby red in colour with bright purple undertones. Aromas of red florals, warm cherry liqueur, sweet toasted tobacco and eucalyptus. Blackberry, medley of cherry, redcurrant, liquorice and asphalt. On entry: a jet propelled rush to the senses. A liquid pleasure bomb.The textural depth and volume would fill a galaxy! The cherry nuance is enough to captivate the imbiber, let alone all the other notes. Fine tannins balance out ultra fresh tangy acids. Energy just leaps out of the glass. Light saline savouriness. Persistent long close. Wow! Wow! Wow!

A massive, powerful, full-bodied beast of a wine that reminds me of a great vintage of Ch teau Latour with its structure and regal character, the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder offers a beautiful bouquet of blackberries, wild cherries, iron, spring flowers, and wild scrub brush. It’s concentrated, has massive extract and richness, no shortage of tannins, and a huge finish. It’s not for the instant gratification crowd and needs 7-8 years of bottle age, but it will see its 30th birthday in fine form.

The 2019 La Joie is striking on the nose with its pure, alluring scents of violet and iron. As it spends time in the glass, it gains intensity, blossoming to aromas ofcrème de cassis, mint chocolate, licorice, truffle and softening new French oak spices. The palate is bursting with concentrated fl avors characterized by energetic acidity rather than weight or extraction. It features tremendously velvety tannins and a very long finish with ringing graphite and violet tones.

The 2019 La Muse is a blend of 90% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Malbec. Deep garnet-purple in color, it skips out of the glass with bright scents of freshly crushed black and red plums, boysenberries, and Morello cherries, plus hints of garrigue, cedar chest, wet slate, and truffles plus a waft of crushed rocks. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is super intense and firm with a solid wall of ripe tannins and compelling freshness holding up a ton of expressive earth and black fruit layers, finishing with epic length. 2,500 cases were made.

Pure, classic California notes of crème de cassis, spicy oak, chalky minerality, graphite, and spring flowers emerge from the 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon, a blend of 91% Cabernet Sauvignon and 9% Merlot that's sourced from multiple mountain AVAs in the valley. Full-bodied and powerful on the palate, it has a deep, rich mid-palate, beautiful tannins, notable acidity, and a great, great finish. It's another brilliant wine from Carpenter that can offer pleasure today yet also evolve for 20-25 years or more.

The 2019 Pinot Noir Hapgood is slightly more feminine, with a beautiful perfume of red and black raspberries as well as spice, rose petals, shrimp broth, and iodine-like aromas and flavors. Utterly seamless on the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, has perfectly integrated acidity, no hard edges, and a great finish. This is one of those rare wines that blends power and finesse perfectly. Drink this gorgeous, singular Pinot Noir over the coming 15-20 years.

The Cabernet Franc blend of the trio, the 2018 Le Desir is 82% Cabernet Franc, 12% Merlot, and 6% Malbec, and as with all these wines, it was brought up in new barrels. Ruby/purple and not completely opaque, it offers up a classic Cabernet Franc nose of mostly red fruits, spring flowers, damp earth, cedary spices, and truffle. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it shines for its incredible elegance and purity more than outright power, yet it still brings plenty of richness. With ultra-fine tannins, perfect balance, and one heck of a great finish, it's another great, great wine from this estate.