Give these expensive wines with their own stories for the holidays Tony Rynders, the winemaker who put Domaine Serene on the map and more recently Tendril and Child’s Play Wines, is the man behind the new launch of Kendall-Jackson’s Maggy Hawk winery in Anderson Valley. Everything he seems to touch turns to gold and this series of four spectacular pinot noirs is impressive.

2019 Holiday Bubbles Edition Robe: Deep gold robe, single-shaft pinpoint perling. Nose: Lemon, citrus, chalk, brioche nez. Bouche: Golden apple, citrus, bouche; smooth finish. Elegant, refined, well-structured.

The 15 Best Sparkling Wines for the End of the Decade Winemaker’s Note: Aromas of strawberry shortcake, canned pear, white peach, lightly toasted brioche, rose petals Flavors flirt with tangerine, kumquat, nectarine on the finish with watermelon rind and lemon meringue.

The 2015 vintage was a challenging year. Maybe that accounts for the closed nose. The palate displays brioche and savory notes. Definitely memorable and complex in the mouth. A fact that makes up for the closed nose.

This wine is 8-10 months in French oak, 35% new. The nose is cherry and rose fragrance. The palate is bright open fruit with a long fruity finish. The Russian River brings a character to pinot noir that is different to Burgundy or Oregon. A kind of third expression. This wine illustrates that with its gushing fruit and freshness.

La Crema’s widest-sourced pinot noir. This wine is 8-10 months in French oak barrels with 25% new oak. Nose of raspberry and toffee. Palate of dark fruit, forest floor, root beer. A lot of complexity for the money here. A wine to look for on restaurant lists. Pleasant on its own or with pork, veal or liver.

The Saralee’s vineyard can be described as the estate vineyard, being right outside the visitor centre. La Crema used the fruit before they bought the old Kunde estate. This wine is aged in 30-35% new French oak. The nose is citrus fruit (lemons) and wine gums. On the palate oranges and stone fruit. However, my favorite feature is a trenchant phenolic backbone that makes the finish long-lasting and distinct. The Saralee’s vineyard can be described as the estate vineyard, being right outside the visitor centre. La Crema used the fruit before they bought the old Kunde estate. This wine is aged in 30-35% new French oak. The nose is citrus fruit (lemons) and wine gums. On the palate oranges and stone fruit. However, my favorite feature is a trenchant phenolic backbone that makes the finish long-lasting and distinct. The Saralee’s vineyard can be described as the estate vineyard, being right outside the visitor centre. La Crema used the fruit before they bought the old Kunde estate. This wine is aged in 30-35% new French oak. The nose is citrus fruit (lemons) and wine gums. On the palate oranges and stone fruit. However, my favorite feature is a trenchant phenolic backbone that makes the finish long-lasting and distinct.

Aged in 35% new oak, 100% French. Nose of honey, brioche, mandarin orange. Palate confirms the fruit in the nose and frames it with a medium acid. This wine is very much in the big, ripe, fruit California idiom. Nonetheless, it is not a fruit bomb and brings sufficient backbone to keep it fresh.

This wine has a nose of tropical fruit (mango, pineapple) with hints of orange. On the palate there is vibrant fruit due to the medium-high acid. Despite being the volume white in the La Crema range this wine should not be overlooked. It is distinctive and well-balanced. A comparative bargain, it is also flexible, pairing well with lobster, chicken, turkey and veal. Or just as a quaffing wine.

Totally reliable, consumer friendly, very tasty chard, perfect for a party.

KSRO Wine Guy Tom Simoneau’s 2019 Wines of the Year From long time Pinot Noir super star winemaker, Adam Lee, this Pinot comes from the Expansion Block at Saralee’s where every other row is planted to a different clone. Do not miss this Pinot Noir.

Holiday Wine Guide: The LCBO’s best reds This is an easygoing and simply delicious pinot, especially with the holiday bird. Oak toast, spice and vanilla are generous, as is the rich core of red cran-cherry fruit. Mid-weight and smooth. Chill slightly.

Surprisingly finessed for a Cali pinot at this price. While still showing more aromatics and fruit than your classic Burgundy, as one would expect from California, the structure here is very European. Great core of acidity to keep the fruit feeling fresh, with a hint of mint on the finish. Very well done for this price.

Perfect Pinot Noirs for your Holiday Table Winemaker’s Note: This wine is a ripe, rich Oregon Pinot Noir, and yet on the finish it has a tension and acidity that leads one to say that this is definitively Oregon at its finest.

Perfect Pinot Noirs for your Holiday Table Winemaker’s Note: Aliette is a perfumed and finesse-driven expression of Pinot Noir, offering notes of strawberry, rosewater, raspberry tea and a trace of minerality.

Perfect Pinot Noirs for your Holiday Table Winemaker’s Note: Stormin’ is big, rich and assertive. The combination of clones 777 and 2A deliver a wine that is dark and brooding with surprising complexity. Plush blue fruit, cherry cola and umami notes lead into ripe tannins and a muscular frame that is refined by balanced acidity and a generous finish.

Perfect Pinot Noirs for your Holiday Table Winemaker’s Note: Aromas of tea leaf, violets and spiced cranberry. A fresh attack of raspberry and red cherry give way to a structured mid-palate of tobacco, sweet umami and dark fruit.

Perfect Pinot Noirs for your Holiday Table Winemaker’s Note: The wine shows its cool-climate origins in bright acidity, accenting the rich flavors of wild strawberries, black cherries and plum. Firm minerality grounds the wine. The tannins are firm, yet with silkiness on the finish, while oak barrel aging brings a smoky, sandalwood note.

Perfect Pinot Noirs for your Holiday Table Wine Spectator: A chiseled red, with notes of underbrush to the dried raspberry and red currant flavors that feature accents of persimmon and pomegranate. Cardamom details show on the finish. Drink now through 2022.

Perfect Pinot Noirs for your Holiday Table Winemaker’s Note: The Nielson Vineyard’s location at the warmer, eastern end of the Santa Maria Valley accounts for the wine’s dark color and ripe flavor profile. Prior to fermentation, the Pinot Noir clusters were 100% de-stemmed and kept cold for 5 days to accentuate the naturally smooth texture of our estate grown fruit. Rose petal and dark cherry with hints of graphite and green tea.

Perfect Pinot Noirs for your Holiday Table Winemaker’s Note: Ripe blackberry and blueberry flavors are followed by notes of cranberry, cherry and pomegranate. With a balance of earth and baking spice, this wine offers firm tannins and a long finish.

Winespeed's Wine of the Year 2019 It’s been a phenomenal year. Over the course of 52 editions of WineSpeed, we tasted thousands of wines. And so many wines stood out—a phenomenal 2017 Vintage Port (Dow’s), a luscious shiraz (Penfold’s St. Henri), a superb Napa cabernet franc (Detert), and, as an eye-opening surprise, a fantastic pinot noir from Patagonia, Argentina (Chacra). Plus many more. But one wine really galvanized us. For its sheer deliciousness; for its superb tension between minerality and richness; for being emblematic of the surging success of an entire region; and for costing less than $50 a bottle when so many great wines cost more than $100, we’ve chosen: GRAN MORAINE Chardonnay 2016 from the Yamhill Carlton district of the Willamette Valley in Oregon.

Pop a cork or two for Christmas Deliciously good, lush, wine made by good people with good intentions.

Top scoring wines of 2019: 100 points The wines tasted in 2019 that received a perfect score from our experts…

Wine Guy: California red wine beyond cabernet sauvignon, pinot noir, merlot or zinfandel Bootleg is a newer label associated with Jackson Family Wines. Crafted with Sonoma County fruit, this is bold and concentrated, luscious with velvety tannins and drinks with a sense of richness and opulence.