Deep-ish ruby red with a lot of purple in the colour; a reserved but engaging nose of dried herbs and earthy, undergrowth scents, a note of balsamic herbs floating across to suggest some whole-bunch influence, while the palate is gorgeously sweet fruited and succulent, with ample superfine tannins in support but very sotto voce, the finish filling out superbly into a long peacock's tail with the flavour and tannins perfectly matched. An exquisite pinot noir.

Light bright yellow in the glass with creamy pastry, spiced nectarine and lemon aromas and flavours, the palate intense and compact, tightly focused and long, with pencilly/cedary and lemon butter flavours of great energy and vitality, lingering long on the aftertaste. Refreshing acidity. Superb now, even better with a bit more age on it.

This is so luscious, ripe and gorgeous that you don't notice the massive, fine-grained tannins until the finish. A truly rich, fruity, opulent and delicious wine that also has a firm, sneaky texture from the powdery-fine tannins and some red fruit acidity. Black cherries, baked blackberries, creme de cassis, spearmint and cocoa. 100% of the grapes come from the W. S. Keyes Vineyard. Drinkable now, but best from 2035.

A beauty that's muscular but elegant. So pure and focused in blackcurrants, creme de cassis, red cherries and dark chocolate. It comes from two vineyards, Wurtele and Yverdon, that go up to 580 meters in elevation. The wine opens with opulent fruit and a smooth entry, then the tannins engage and grip the palate while the flavors expand through the finish. Drinkable now, but best from 2030.

A spicy, dark chocolaty wine that's well-structured and packed with black fruit and a melange of spices. Blended with 14% petit verdot, which adds tannin and savory black pepper accents. It's concentrated and well layered, with fine-grained tannins that are nicely balanced by acidity. Drink now or hold.

So velvety, sleek, layered and composed, it's a treat to drink now or save for later. Enjoy the complexity of a wine blended from 25 to 30 lots of mountain and valley floor sites up and down the reach of Napa Valley. Red and black fruit notes give some of the delicious fruitiness of Rutherford, while mountain grapes from Atlas Peak and cooler-climate grapes from the Stags Leap district add their own subtleties. Drink or hold.

A world class wine by Chris Carpenter, the 2021 Mt. Brave Cabernet Franc shows off its inky core, revealing violets, tar and menthol tones in the glass, alongside a hedonistic black fruit aromatic backbone. The palate is plush and dense with a refined mouthfeel and glorious depth and complexity. Beautifully-structured, with heady black and blue fruits, enjoy this beautiful wine now and over the next twenty years to comer. Drink 2024-2044- 98

The world-class 2021 La Jota Cabernet Sauvignon can benefit from a long decant. Once aroused this offers black currant cordial and creme de violette flavors that meld well with the stony accents, with touches of graphite and black cherry compote. The beautiful purple and black floral aromatics add to the enjoyment as this beauty could really use another year in the cellar prior to enjoying. Drink 2025-2050- 98

A stunning new bottling, the 2021 La Jota Merlot is sourced from this high elevation site on Howell Mountain. Deeply colored and perfumed, this leads with anise and black rose petal aromatics alongside wintergreen, fennel seed and suggestions of damp rock. The palate is fresh and vicious with great weight and tension. Loads of mouth-watering acidity invade the mid-palate, alongside heady black and blue fruits, with pencil lead and loamy soil accents. A joy to consume now, enjoy this beauty over the next two decades. Drink 2024-2044- 98

One of the greatest Chardonnays ever produced in South Africa, this is a world-class wine that combines components from the Klein Karoo, Overberg, Robertson and Stellenbosch. Fermented in 35% new barrels, it's a chiselled, intense, fynbos and aniseed scented white with layers of kelp, vanilla spice, oyster shell, struck match and waxed lemon. Long, nuanced and very complex. 2025-32   

The Lokoya Diamond Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is primarily sourced from two sites: the 6.4ha Wallis Vineyard and Rhyolite Ridge (7.2ha), which are primarily volcanic soils. Winemaker Chris Carpenter says that Diamond Mountain is in the warmest part of Napa Valley's mountain terroirs. The tannins are softer, the pH is a little higher, and the acids are a little more savoury. With the 2021 vintage, Carpenter is right about the tannins being a bit softer, and they are very long. The wine is surprisingly medium-to-fullbodied, with very beautiful aromatics of sandalwood and sage, cherry blossoms and blood orange, and those soft tannins are superfine. Grippy acidity is very savoury, scented with a spicy herbaceousness that carries through a long and extended finish. The wine is so fresh and framed by an expressive vein of crushed stone and red volcanic minerality. Chris Carpenter makes the Lokoya wines, and the label is owned by the Jackson Family. There are four 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines in the portfolio, each from a different mountain: Diamond Mountain, Howell Mountain, Spring Mountain, and Mt. Veeder. The winemaking is the same for all the wines, with mostly native yeast fermentation, pump-overs by hand, malolactic fermentation in barrel and ageing for 22 months in 90% new French oak. What separates these wines is not style but place. Carpenter believes that fine Napa Valley Cabernet wines are not only defined by the soils of their sites but also by the Bay Area Pacific breezes that roll in and out daily, cooling the valley from the south to the north in the evenings and from the north to the south in the mornings. These mountains define cooling as any place in the valley and the diurnal temperature shifts at higher elevations create an equilibrium where climatic fluctuations aren't as pronounced as fruit grown below the fog lines.

In my tasting with winemaker Chris Carpenter, we talked at length about differentiating sub-appellations of Napa in the Lokoya wines. Still, with Cardinale, the Oakville-based crown jewel in the Jackson Family portfolio, the idea is the sum must be greater than the parts. This is not an estate wine. It is culled from multiple appellations, typically between three and nine, depending on the vintage. Sources have been Vine Hill Ranch and To Kalon in the past. The 2021 is 91% Cabernet Sauvignon from Stags Leap, Rutherford, and St. Helena, with 9% Merlot from the 24ha Keyes Estate Vineyard on Howell Mountain, aged 22 months in 80% new French oak. Super savoury aromatics of black cherry, cedar, black liquorice, graphite, black tea, tobacco leaf, rose petal and sagebrush. Full-bodied with all those aromatic qualities making appearances on the full-bodied palate, framed by a soaring tannin profile that resolves with beautifully crisp and mouthwatering acidity, which is so impressive given the density of the wine. The acidity is so pure and cleansing it gives the sensation of fresh, crisp mountain water washing away the deeply robust and powerful tannins that frame this powerhouse wine, readying you for another sip.

The 2021 Le Desir is made from 87% Cabernet Franc, 11% Merlot, and 2% Malbec. Deep garnet-purple colored, it’s quite shy to start off and even more closed than its siblings (La Muse and La Joie), needing a lot of swirling to bring out notes of fresh black and red cherries, juicy blueberries, and black raspberries, leading with touches of iris, tilled loam, aniseed, and garrigue. The medium to full-bodied palate is tight-knit and intense with spine-tingling tension, delivering subtle floral, mineral, and earth-inspired sparks, finishing long with a perfumed firework display.

The 2021 La Muse is a blend of 90% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 4% Malbec. Deep garnet-purple colored, it pops from the glass with notes of kirsch, fresh black and red plums, and wild blueberries, leading to suggestions of crushed rocks, star anise, and lilacs. The medium to full-bodied palate shimmers with vibrant, intense red, black, and blue fruit flavors, supported by firm, rounded tannins and bold tension, finishing long with a red berry lift. Alluring to drink now, allow it another 4-5 years in bottle for that next-level experience and then drink it over the next 20 years+

Deep, bright, youthful purple-red colour with a sweet blackberry pastille, mixed spice and almost jammy raspberry coulis flavours. The wine is very full bodied and concentrated, dense and massive, with amazing depth of flavour and serious tannins adding great authority to the structure, which will ensure it ages superbly. This is a most impressive grenache. Long term.

Planted in 1987 in Gladysdale at 400m by the trailblazing Ray Guerin for Hardys and purchased by Giant Steps in 2022. This is its first wine from the vineyard. And what a wine it is! A brilliant and pure scented bouquet of nashi, pink grapefruit, crushed rock, sea spray and honeysuckle. There's a hint of fresh honeycomb, too. Incisive, pure and chalky on the palate, this concentrated yet light on its feet wine is reminiscent of good Corton-Charlemagne. That it will age gracefully is a given.

High Sands is always a landmark wine, a site-reflective icon of peerless husbandry and elaboration, but it can be imposing, needing time and reflection. This is different, though, finely tuned, lucid, silky and sophisticated, and feeling even more expressive of place. A great, cool vintage, yes, with both depth and levity, but Pete Fraser’s quarter turns of the screw are also palpable. Fruits are red and black, ripe but with some tart wild tension, dusted in heady Baharat spicing, the heartbeat of old-vine power pulsing insistently within. Flavour descriptors feel ineffectual, though. It’s the sheer graceful power of the thing that’s so beguiling, as it noiselessly swoops in, catching you in the updraft of its immense wingspan. By any measure, this is a great wine.

100% destemmed and fermented in 1800 Litre stone amphorae on skins for 5 months. Matured for a further 15 months in said amphorae. If you take all the exquisite aromas of your favourite cool climate light to medium bodied red wine, you'll most likely find most of them here. Wild strawberries, juicy mulberry, blood plums and red cherry. There is raw coffee bean, cocoa pods, rosemary flowers and lilac. Shiso leaf and gentian root. A silk sheet of dry tannins and astute acidity. A millpond of mouth watering moreishness. This is the next level Australian grenache, it's delicate and powerful, seductive and confident. It’s drinking like a dream! Serve with crispy salt and pepper whole quail and check you are still breathing, cause you might just be in heaven.

The single-varietal 2021 Cabernet Franc is deep garnet-purple in color. It springs from the glass with notes of Morello cherries, redcurrant jelly, and black raspberries leading to underlying notes of dried mint, rose oil, and pencil shavings. The medium to full-bodied palate is energetic, with great tension and ripe grainy tannins supporting the vibrant fruit, finishing long and minerally.

Deep garnet-purple in color, the single-varietal 2021 Mount Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon needs a lot of shaking and swirling to coax out notes of tar, black pepper, and black truffle before breaking through to a core of blackcurrant pastilles, baked plums, and boysenberry preserves plus a hint of hoisin. The full-bodied palate delivers impressive tension, with a rock-solid frame of ripe grainy tannins and powerful black fruits, finishing long and spicy.

The 2021 W S Keyes Merlot comes from the 1986 plantings up at Keyes and is composed of 78% Merlot and 22% Cabernet Sauvignon. Deep garnet-purple in color, it explodes from the glass with a mushroom cloud of fruitcake, plum preserves, and baked blackberries plus suggestions of Indian spices, forest floor, and sandalwood with a touch of mint tea. The full-bodied palate bursts with bold black fruit and exotic spice layers supported by velvety tannins and just enough freshness, finishing with epic length and fragrance.

The 2021 W S Keyes Chardonnay was all barrel fermented and spent 24 months on lees. It shimmies out of the glass with notes of lime blossom, fresh ginger, and Bosc pears followed by an undercurrent of white peaches and yuzu plus a hint of struck flint. The medium-bodied palate is racy and minerally, with vibrant citrus and pear-inspired flavors and a satiny texture, finishing long and chalky. Wow!

The 2022 Upper Barn Chardonnay bursts with bold notions of lemon-laced creme caramel, ripe pineapple, and juicy pears plus suggestions of candied ginger, wet pebbles, and wild sage. The full-bodied palate is rich and satiny, with amazing tension and loads of spicy sparks lifting the tropical and orchard fruit flavors to a very long finish on this fabulous wine. Part of the vineyard is planted to 1982 Old Wente clone vines on AXR rootstock. 411 cases were made.

The single-varietal 2019 Christopher's Cabernet Sauvignon is deep garnet-purple in color. After a swirl or two, notes of crushed blackberries and black cherries strut from the glass, with nuances of violets, graphite, and licorice in the undercurrent. The medium to full-bodied palate is tightly wound with a shimmery kind of energy, featuring super-ripe, fine-grained tannins and beautiful freshness, finishing long and minerally. This is impressive! 536 cases were made.

The 2022 Seascape Vineyard Chardonnay needs a fair bit of swirling to unlock notes of lemon tart, guava, and key lime pie leading to hints of brine, fresh ginger, and yuzu zest. The medium to full-bodied palate is electric, featuring intense citrus and mineral layers with a silky texture, finishing with epic length. This should age amazingly! This wine was barrel fermented and aged in French oak. Native strains were used for alcoholic and malolactic fermentation and the wine is unfined and unfiltered. Seascape Vineyard is located on a 1,000-foot-high panoramic ridgetop west of the town of Occidental, overlooking Bodega Bay and the Pacific Ocean. It was planted to the Spring Mountain Chardonnay clonal selection in the mid-1980s.