A lush syrah, buoyed by bright acidity. It has a mix of red and black fruit — boysenberry and raspberry — with an edgy kick of spice. Smart. Four stars.

Sourced mainly from Mendocino’s High Rock Ranch and Hawks Butte vineyards, this is another beautiful example of a cool climate Mendocino County red. The good-value fuller-bodied syrah has medium tannins, nice acid and a serious sucker punch of taste. You’ll get some jammy red raspberry and herbs on the nose, but that makes way for a burst of black pepper, plum, dark cherry, boysenberry and a bit of that feeling of getting a mouthful of river stones after wiping out on the standup paddleboard face first. But in a good way. Just go with it.

This earthy syrah has plenty going on. It has flavors of black fruit, smoke and spice, with a savory note of anise in the mix. Tasty.

Racy herbal notes amid dark berry fruit. After being open for two days, the wine reveals a fascinating earthy-leafy-ness that works well with grilled meats.

This syrah has lovely red fruit — cherry and a hint of cranberry. It has a great quench of tangy fruit and bright acid — perfect to take on that beefy puck of protein.

60 Second Wine Review — Copain Syrah The Wine High intensity nose–mix of blue and blackberries, violets and lots of pepper spice. On the palate, the spice carries through and brings a smokey element like hickory BBQ. The fruit is still present with medium-plus acidity giving a mouthwatering quality. Ripe medium-plus tannins hold up the medium-plus body fruit and are quite velvety at this point. Long finish introduces some stony mineralty. The Verdict The cool-climate Syrahs I tasted at this year’s Hospice du Rhône rocked my world and this Copain continues the trend. It’s very Northern Rhone-like with mouthwatering savoriness that compliments, rather than gets overwhelmed by, the dark fruit notes. At around $40-45, this is a very character-driven wine that is drinking at its peak.

This Picpoul from Copain in California's Russian River Valley opens with aromas of sweet melons and lemon zest, with a gentler acidity and a salinity reminiscent of green olives.

Wine Wednesday with Crushed Fine Wine

Up in Mendocino where the air is rare Chardonnay shines and this is a great example from one of the best producers in the area. The Pacific Ocean influence is prominent in this bottle with bright creamy lemon curd aromas layered with the scent of alpine, green apple and pear. The acidity is crisp, giving the wine a nice wet-pebble minerality to clean it all up. This wine is definitely worth the price. Rating - A.

5 Progressive Picks by TJ and Hadley Douglas Progressive Drinking: A New Way to Buy, Drink, and Learn About Wine This Chardonnay’s malolactic fermentation and oak aging beef up the wine’s body, pushing it to the far end of our Urban Grape Progressive Scale.

Fresh aromatics carried by an unctuous citrus note of both freshly rubbed leaf and oil with just a hint of cream. The palate follows sprinkled through with crushed sea salt into a long finish. A wash of acidity throughout. A good example of a wine for mixed company – the acidity and mineral notes to please the wine geek with just enough flavour to work for one newer to wine. 16.5/20.

A little discombobulated when first opened, it came together very prettily after just 20 minutes. Shows that owner, Kendal-Jackson, can move with the times, and the climate, and make fleshy but elegant wines when the northern California climate calls for it.

Lean, precise varietal, and more delicate than most. The oak is extremely subtle, and the flavors spot-on. Don’t serve too cold. Best after decanting.

The Christmas Gift Guide For Francophiles A Francophile will always appreciate a glass of good red wine. This gift is probably the safest — you cannot go wrong with it. If you feel like offering a bottle of red wine to one of your relatives, I recommend this bottle of Château Vignot Saint Emilion, 2009. It goes perfectly with cheese.

Sumptuous, with coffee'd oak aromas. Dark and smoky oak flavors dominate to complement black plum fruit.

The vignot, a collaboration of California's Jess Jackson and wife Barbara Banke and Frenchman Pierre Seillan and wife Monique is robust, with that French gusto behind the flavors and tannins. IT's a blend of predominantly MErlot and Cab Franc, with a dollop of Cabernet Sauvignon. It has precocious fruit, a la California, but the acidity and tannin to remind you it's grown in France. It's certainly a novelty to be such an international production. It's made at Chateau Lassegue, on the right bank of the Gironde River in Bordeaux, in Saint Emilion. It's sister wine is Lassegue Grand Cru. Catch the Review on April 3.

Bottle shot of Chateau Vignot on Cover with $35, 2003 Chateau Vignot St-Emilion Grand Cru Review-A joint venture between Jess Jackson and Barbara Banke of Kendall-Jackson and winemaker Pierre Seillan that returns Seillan to his Bordeaux roots. The hot 2003 growing season shows through in the slightly baked plum. Black cherry, red currant and coffee aromas. Good acidity balances the ripeness and soft tannins round it out. -Tim Teichgraeber

This Grand Cru from Saint-Emilion gathers up great bunches of fresh violets into a massive bouquet that heightens the rich plum fruit when the wine is tasted. Traces of leather also emerge, as does the odd but highly appealing scent of waxed wood. An exceptionally accessible Bordeaux

Vibrant, spicy, with lovely flavors of cranberry, dried berries, herbs and white pepper. A great food wine. Balanced

2003 Chteau Vignot, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru: light, dry and aromatic with flavors of raspberry and cinnamon; soft tannins; intensely fruity; $35. Miami Herald July 20, 2006 WINE Wandering but grounded, he's `a servant of the soil' Fred Tasker ftasker@MiamiHerald.com Pierre Seillan seems a little too down-to-earth to be a globe-trotting, jet-setting ''Flying Winemaker'' -- one of those charismatic characters who flits about the world running winemaking operations at a dozen wineries in half a dozen countries. But he seems like one to his wife, Monique, who says she seldom sees him at their homes in California and France. ''If his mistress were a woman, I could compete with that,'' she sighs. ``But his mistress is his job. What can I do?'' Seillan began to wander in 1997 after 30 years of winemaking in France's Bordeaux region. That's when he met Jess Jackson, who, with his wife and fellow lawyer, Barbara Banke, has create a far-flung empire of wine operations in the United States, France, Italy, Chile and Australia, including notably Kendall-Jackson in California. The winemaking styles of Jackson and Seillan proved sympathetic, and Seillan today oversees red wine operations at several of Jackson's wineries as consultant or winemaker. He makes a red wine called ''Le Désir,'' a blend of cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and merlot, at Jackson's Vérité winery near Healdsburg in California's Sonoma Valley. He makes the red wine called ''Arcanum,'' of the same grapes, at Jackson's Tenuta di Arceno, in Italy's Tuscany region. Now Jackson and Seillan have teamed up to buy Chteau Lassgue, a 60-acre grand cru vineyard and winery in Bordeaux's Saint-Emilion region. ''Saint-Emilion is the most serious appellation in Bordeaux,'' Seillan says. ``It's not one of your generic Bordeaux areas.'' Seillan and Jackson were impressed with the vineyard's limestone soils, which give wine that French hint of minerality, and its perfect southwest sun exposure, which is crucial to getting grapes fully ripe. There's also a beautiful old chteau on the property, where the Seillans live part of the year. At the chteau, Seillan is turning out two wines from different plots with different soils. One is $35, the second is $50. Neither is a ''second wine,'' he insists, simply ``another wine.'' Reflecting Seillan's style, both are subtle wines based on merlot, with a French restraint and minerality. ''I am a servant of the soil,'' he says. ``It's not the other way around. I want wines that are fruity, with power but finesse and elegance, not too much tannic astringency.'' Visiting Miami, Seillan also was showing off wines he has made at Jackson's Verité and Tenuta di Arceno wineries. Both show his subtle touch, his ability to create intensity and complexity without bombast. And next year -- maybe later -- Monique hopes to slow down her flying winemaker and spend more time in France, fixing the plumbing and redoing the paint on their 18th century chteau. ''It needs repair, but all the money must go into the wine,'' she says, sighing again. ``Someday . . . ''

The 60 acres (24 hectares) of vines of this château are located less than two miles from Saint-Émilion and are operated both by Californian and French wine devotees. The 2016 has a light fruity nose with a hint of chocolate and tar, and is a coherent and well-balanced stream of juice in the mouth.

The Château Lassegue 2015 is a wine that doesn’t just express its place of origin with clarity and brilliance—it’s a St.-Emilion Grand Cru, after all, so that’s to be expected—but it also represents the importance of family. It’s co-owned by the Seillans as well as the Jackson / Banke family, a relationship that also bears fruit in Sonoma with Vérité and Tuscany with Arcanum, for both of which Pierre Seillan serves as vigneron. Over the years, I’ve had the great fortune of getting to know the Seillans—Pierre, Monique, Helene, Nicolas, and now his wife Christina, all of whom are involved in the family business—on both sides of the Atlantic, and have always been struck by the similarities between them and their wines: The generosity of spirit, the joyfulness of the juice. That doesn’t happen by mistake. The property may be situated in one of the best neighborhoods of St.-Emilion—Château Pavie, Château Ausone, and more are all within a ten-minute drive—but it’s also about an obsessive focus on the details: Vinification and aging take place using a system of micro-crus—that is, individual parcels are separated out from one another and treated in the unique way that the Seillans feel is best. That might mean aging in a barrel charred to a medium-plus toast from Allier, or in a medium toast from Tronçais. By the time any particular vintage is in barrel, there can be as many as a hundred-plus different parcel-and-barrel combinations to choose from and work with for the final blend. The results speak for themselves in a year like 2015: The wine is shimmeringly expressive, a blend of 70% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon that rises from the glass with aromas of cedar, blackberry liqueur, and blueberry, all of it wound up with sweet spice. It glides across the palate with waves of warm black licorice, figs, hoisin sauce, cedar, and a hint of incense, and keeps on changing with every passing minute in the glass. That layered evolution promises to happen in the cellar for at least another three decades, if not more. This is a wine of balance, terroir, and joy, and a steal at the price.

With its noble expression, the 2012 Lassègue shows a beautiful palate of hillside Merlot with spicy oak notes from the Cabernets. A brilliant finish.

With the Lasségue Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2011 ($64-$66) you can splurge a little and still get that great Bordeaux flavor. It is a beautiful deep red in the glass with powerful aromas of ripe black fruit. The first sip will tell you why so many people make a fuss about Bordeaux wine. It has layers of blackberry and black cherry flavors that keep getting better as you sip the wine, with some interesting herbal notes. The tannins are still strong, but they don’t overpower the wine. I suspect this wine will keep getting better for at least another 5-10 years as the tannins fade, leaving even more fruit flavor. French wines usually don’t tell you the blend, but this is a Right Bank Bordeaux, so merlot is the predominant grape. This blend is 62 percent merlot, 30 percent cabernet franc and 8 percent cabernet sauvignon.