Smooth and lush with creamy texture and juicy style; bright and tangy, long and balanced.

Smooth, clean and juicy with bright plum and racy acidity; fresh, balanced and long.

Smooth, clean and juicy with bright plum and racy acidity; fresh, balanced and long.

This wine, made for the Jackson Family Estates team by Cape Town-born. US-based Jackson winemaker Graham Weerts, is the American company's first South African release and is a bit like all the wines from this stable: absolutely reliable, distinctly superior, but not thrilling. It's an excellent Cape answer to white burgundy with good tension and is based on vineyards in high-altitude Stellenbosch (60% of the blend) plus contributions from Kaaimansgut and Robertson selected by Rosa Kruger. I'm glad it exists and I hope it will help to put South Africa on the American wine lovers' map.

362 cases made. Looking back, I see the 2011 was around 12%, with 2012 and 2013 being more weighty. In 2014, the scales are running backwards again. This Viognier has no trouble seeing its…feet.
Nice perfume here, and some savoury funky stuff going on as well. White flowers, spice, nectarine, nuts. Light to medium bodied, crunchy rather than fat, but delivers flavour very nicely. The line is unbroken from front to back, and throughout finesse and perfume are the order of the day. Almost lemony acid to close, though not coarse or hard. I like what they’ve done here.

Powerful and brooding, but the personality shines through. Aromas of mineral, fresh anise and raspberry lean toward dense, complex flavors of boysenberry, cracked pepper and sage. Finishes with bright acidity and firm but ripe tannins. Best from 2017 through 2022.

Yummy coconut, banana, ripe tropical fruit on nose. The creamy palate continues with ripe banana & tropical fruit, Coconut/pineapple finish.

They stuck the trade label over the barcode, which makes Mattinson positively stream through his ears, so I could not scan it into Wineosphere, but luckily, time passes, and if you’ve done it once, you need not do it again: it’s a fine line between pleasure and pain. The scan happened last year I suspect, no doubt via CM’s fair and steady hand, he who likes nothing more than to spend his leisure time in regional IGAs helping people to scan things. Anyway, I digress. There’s 3,264 cases of this produced from bush vines planted in 1946. Hand picked. 50% whole bunches. Cold soak. etc. Pretty good credentials for a $32 wine. Grenache. Is. Still. Not. Fashionable.
This is a bit more serious than your average South Australian Grenache. Leaf litter, spice, cherries, raspberry, potpourri, new leather etc. etc. Medium to full bodied, driven and controlled by firm dry earthy tannin that lends the wine seriousness, and structure. Raspberry, mineral feel, clutch of dried herbs, balanced freshening acidity, slight warmth of alcohol, then a crunch of dry tannin meets essence of raspberry on the finish. Significant wine I think.

There’s a bit of thought gone into these wines from Yangarra. Says on the back label “Grown on a 2 acre block on ironstone gravelly sand. Hand picked and whole berry pressed using basket press. 30% fermented in large ceramic eggs (half on skins for 90 days), 60% in older French oak, and 10% new French oak. 7 months in barrel and stirred on lees. Certified bio-dynamic.” And, luckily for me, I’m not quite a touch typist, but pretty damned quick. 269 dozen made.
Lemon barley, white flowers and vanilla bean, pie apple and cinnamon. Medium bodied, fleshy smooth and chalky texture, just right acidity, savoury and creamy, punctuated by lime and lemon rind on a pretty long finish. Complex and interesting. Could even turn the head of a committed Chardonnay drinker.

The blend for 2013 is 49% grenache, 29% shiraz and 22% mourvedre. Fermented wild, spends time in older oak.
Reminds me of GSMs of the past, the ones I weened myself on in early wine learning days. A good thing. The wine is certain in structure, offers chewy fruit, some tendrils of cedar curling through the riper flavours, a spike of lemony tang distracts in the finish, but it’s bold and heady in floral, ripe fruit-and-spice aromas which drag you back to the glass. Has a feel of something you want to cellar after you have your first sip. Would knock the socks off something you’ve prodded on a Weber BBQ for a long, slow and low cook.

Generous, juicy and inviting Californian Pinot Noir, with fleshy red cherry aromas and flavours. Full-bodied and satin smooth. Pair with planked salmon.

Lovely sweet cherry aromas and flavours along with chocolate notes from oak aging. Medium-bodied and smooth. The vineyards are located on the benchlands of the Arroyo Seco appellation in the cool climate region of Monterey, which benefit from morning fog. Silky finish. Pair with roast chicken.

Aromas and flavors of red raspberries and spice, rich and hearty, soft tannins.

This reasonably priced chardonnay is valued for its simplicity and grace. There are stone fruit flavors and a nice mineral note with restrained oak.

Fifty cents from every bottle of this wine sold goes to Operation Homefront, a nonprofit organization that provides emergency finances to veterans and their families. Not only is the cause good, but so is the wine. The blend of zinfandel, merlot, petit verdot and petite sirah shows off rich cherry and raspberry fruit. It's a versatile wine to serve at tailgates or with grilled sausage, pizza, hamburgers, etc.

Delivers a rich, focused, dense core of blackberry, black licorice, cedar and lavender, gaining depth, length and persistence on a long, full, layered finish.

Firm and rich, focused on a tight core of licorice-laced blackberry, cedar, anise and savory herb flavors, this turns tamer toward the finish, finishing with a full-bodied aftertaste.

K-J has always made a fine Riesling — this one is bursting with citrus, apricot, jasmine, honeysuckle and ripe pear. It’s produced off vineyards in cool Monterey County. It packs some power at 13 percent alcohol. I admit this bottle got tasted, reviewed and stashed back in my fridge and … lost in the fridge. Tasting it again many weeks later, I can verify it still held together. This is the amazing Riesling grape for you. With just a bit of sweetness and enough acidity, a bottle can stay fresh once opened and reclosed for a very long time. This one has a screw cap. Sometimes I forget just how versatile Riesling is — you can serve it with food or pour as an aperitif — or enliven savory sauces with it.

The 2013 Zinfandel Fanucchi-Wood Road Vineyard is another drop-dead gorgeous wine in this range. Bright, floral and exuberant, with superb delineation and class, the Fanucchi-Wood Road possesses remarkable complexity. Silky tannins provide the backdrop as this polished Zinfandel shows off its personality. Hints of pomegranate, blood orange and flowers add the final layers of nuance. This is one of the best wines I tasted at Hartford on my most recent visit.

Graphite, smoke, tobacco, new leather, licorice and gravel are some of the signatures in Stonestreet's 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Rockfall. The most savory and mineral of these Cabernets, the Rockfall is also arguably the wine that captures the greatest amount of site specificity. The firm tannins are nearly buried by the sheer intensity of the fruit, but they are there. In this vintage though, the contours are a bit softened, which does have the benefit of making the wine more accessible early, but at some expense of vineyard nuance.

The 2013 Chardonnay Gravel Bench is the most explosive and complete of these Chardonnays. Intense aromatics meld into a core of deep, resonant fruit, all supported by veins of acidity and minerality that confer energy.

A huge, explosive wine, the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Christopher's possesses tons of inner sweetness, perfume and intensity. Here the aim seems to be pure textural richness. Jammy dark fruit, spices, lavender, smoke and violets all jump from the glass. The Christopher's is an undoubtedly exciting, powerful wine. But is it the wine this land wants to make? I am not so sure.

A full-on, voluptuous Chardonnay, the 2013 Bear Point impresses for its depth and exceptional overall balance. Tropical fruit, honey, chamomile, wild flowers, smoke and peach are some of the many nuances that open up in the glass. The waxy, oily finish is a thing of beauty. The Bear Point is one of the more opulent wines in this lineup. Today, it is striking.

Bright lemon, citrus peel and white floral notes emerge from Stonestreet's 2013 Chardonnay Cougar Ridge. This is another tense, brilliant Chardonnay built on pure energy and cut. The wine's super-intense yet mid-weight personality suggests there will be considerable upside from giving bottles a year or two to fully come together.

The 2013 Chardonnay Red Point, 100% Clone 4 Chardonnay, brings together many of the best elements of the estate; namely a rich, textured expression of fruit allied to bright, salivating acidity. There is plenty of depth through the mid-palate, while the flavors gain brightness and drive on the finish.