It's nice to see veteran winery Murphy-Goode craft its most successful Pinot Noir in at least 15 years. Dry and polished, it's ready to drink now. The palate boasts a soft, silky texture and delicious cranberry and raspberry flavors. With production of 49,000 cases, it's easy to find.

Clean and crisp in acidity, this polished PG features citrus fruit, pear, white flower and spice flavors. It's a racy, mouth-cleansing wine that's nice as an aperitif as the day comes to a close.

Wood smoke and cooked berry aromas yield to bold charred blackberry flavors encased in nicely grippy tannins and lifted by acidity. The wine is medium to full bodied, and quite bold in style.

This wine is oaky first and fruity second, showing smoky spicy aromas and equally spicy, lightly charred flavors. Medium body and moderate tannins give it heft on the palate and there's just enough blackberry flavor underneath to counterbalance the oakiness.

10 End-of-Summer Beauties Best Value This fruit-driven release from Murphy-Goode shows notes of plum, blueberry and black cherry with soft tannins. It has excellent value for the price.

Leading with a straightforward, mid-density nose of currants and black cherries and showing a trim of cocoa and dried herbs along with a wispy suggestion of smoke that is reiterated in its slightly solid, nicely filled flavors, this moderately full-bodied wine edges to tannin as it crosses the palate while keeping essential Cabernet fruit in sight at all times. While never especially flamboyant or flashy, it hits the right varietal marks at a very fair price and comes with the promise of a few years of improvement if cellared. One star, good value.

This is a value red made in a big full-bodied style that's thick, rich and chocolatey. Substantial heat and oak push the fruit forward with no hesitation.

This is simple, hearty California cabernet, its chewy blue-black fruit ripe and flavorful but not ponderous, lasting on a pleasant cassis aroma. Try it with lamb shanks braised in red wine.

Weighted in tannins and oak, this wine is also perfumed in ripe berry and chocolate, along with dried herb. Bittersweet tobacco marks the finish, complemented in vanilla.

...the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon (from vineyards in Napa, Mendocino, Sonoma, Knight's Valley and Alexander Valley) is a soft, fruity effort with lots of herbaceously-tinged red and black fruits, plums and currants. This tasty Cabernet is best drunk over the next 4-5 years.

Smoky and smooth, this is a black and tannic cabernet, the kind of warm, meaty red that would meld well with braised beef.

A huge advancement over the previous vintage, representing new decisions by the winery. It's a rich, easy-drinking wine, showing delightful lime, peach, melon and lemongrass flavors, brightened by crisp acidity.

Green apple and unripe pear flavors dominate this savory style. The crisp finish shows dried green herbal notes.

Fresh tasting, dry and well balanced, this wine doesn’t go overboard but has everything in reasonable balance, including a buttery appley aroma, and good acidity to bolster the fruit flavors and add a little bite to the texture.

Rife with juicy, ripe apple fruit and sweetened further by a fair dollop of oak, Murphy-Goode’s Minnesota Cuvée is a rounded, clean, very direct, mid-sized Chardonnay that holds nothing in reserve. It is, like its straightforward winery mates, a wine of limited reach and range, but its extra fruity push makes it the preferred of the three.

This warm-climate wine is fulsome and hearty in baked Asian pear and candied ginger. A dried-fruit quality stands out on the buxom palate, a buttery taste of dried apricot drizzled in honey and brioche.

Bright ruby-red. Lively aromas of red currant, cherry, tobacco and fresh herbs, with a truffley nuance. Lush, sweet and accessible, with red currant, tobacco, leaf and wood smoke flavors and a light vegetillity. Juicy and nicely delineated.

The 2012 Pinot Noir Haarstad Valley is a bit chunky, but it shows good depth, with more than enough fruit to fill out its broad shoulders. Dark red cherry, plum, spice and new leather inform the finish.

The 2012 Pinot Noir Haarstad Vineyard is composed of the Dijon clone 777 and the Calera clone, which is apparently a suitcase clone from a famous vineyard in Vosne-Romanee. This wine displays lots of dusty, black cherry fruit intermixed with hints of damp earth and Asian soy. Medium-bodied, fresh, earthy and spicy, it should be consumed over the next 5-7 years.

Dense and compact, with firm flavors if dill, currant, anise, and cedary tobacco. Drink now through 2007.

The red wines have been an ongoing process of improvement since Matanzas Creek was acquired by Kendall-Jackson. The 2012 Merlot from Sonoma, which comes from the estate vineyards in Jackson Park (legacy vineyards in the Alexander Mountain Estate), reveals crisp, tart acids, a dark ruby color, and white chocolate and berry fruit. It’s very good and represents a blend of 98% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon aged in 30% new French oak.

This Merlot, blended with a little Cabernet Sauvignon, is fairly oaky and fairly hot with high alcohol. But it's delicious with flavors of blackberry and cherry jam, milk chocolate and anise. A fine grilled steak will do it justice.

Quite a good wine, dry and firm in tannins, with a certain distinguished elegance. It has pleasant black and red cherry fruit, cola and sandalwood flavors...

Exhibits a sweet bouquet of dried herbs, mocha, and berry fruit as well as an elegant, medium-bodied, soft, supple style that begs for consumption over the next 5-7 years.