This red wine blend offers impressive complexity for the price and is widely distributed by K-J, which may lack in snob factor but makes quite reliable wines. The winery calls this wine a renegade because the blend includes both Bordeaux varieties and other grapes, including zinfandel, syrah and petite sirah. I'm not sure that makes it all that revolutionary - California produces lots of offbeat blends - but it's very tasty. It offers pure, penetrating black cherry, black currant and herb flavors and is smooth, balanced and ready to drink.

Good fruity nose with a hint of earth that adds a bit of complexity and interest. The flavor profile is ripe strawberry and cherries with a hint of lead pencil. Very well balanced and pleasing.

This is a very pleasant medium-bodied pinot noir with aromas and flavors of berries and cherries. Well balanced and a real crowd pleaser.

This Zin delivers what in the right hands makes the variety so appealing--bright, juicy flavor with a hint of sweet spice and a briary finish. There’s nothing very complex or remotely subtle about it. There’s instead just tons of up front fruit flavor, without excess alcohol or heat. Delicious.

This is the first and so far only vintage of this botrytized sauvignon blanc dessert wine, made in the style of a Sauternes, lush and overwhelmed by flavors and aromas of peach and honeysuckle and a touch of hazelnut.

Medium to full red to brick-red. Shows some age. Chocolate and charred-timber aromas, with sort of toffee-like notes. Palate soft and round, smooth and rich with flesh and nice balance. Bottle-age making a positive impact on the flavours. Spice/herb/sappy flavours. Ironstone minerality. Good intensity and length.

Deep red/purple, very good color. Deep, latent, spicy fruit aromas, shiraz driven perhaps. Intense, rich and lively in the mouth, full-bodied and powerful with firm, ample tannins tightening the finish. Lively acidity which jars slightly. Especially with the alcohol, it results in a hardness. Possibly adjusted.

Deepish purple/red; excellent colour. Earthy, dusty, nutty and spicy aromas, the dry spices of the warmer regions grenache. Intense flavour and tight tannins. Some lushness of sweet fruit, but with structure and spine.

It's not often that I recommend a wine that naturally reaches an alcohol level of 15.4% but I love this one, made from California's signature grape variety (albeit with roots far, far away) and vines that are well over 50 years old according to the back label. Mendocino was first planted with vines by Italian immigrants who simply wanted wine to drink and had no truck with fancy irrigation systems. This wine, the most basic from the Edmeades stable, is presumably a blend from the many different old vineyards from which the company produces vineyard-designated Zinfandels. Contained, dry nose. Nothing about this wine flaunts its alcohol. Well structured and very Zinfandel. Not exactly an iron hand in a velvet glove; more velvety richness inside an iron corset - and none the worse for it. Serious wine and quite a bargain for a Californian. Impressive! GV (for good value)

Deep red/purple, bright - very good colour. Fresh, simple, herbal grapy aromas with some banana esters and simplicity. Some dark and red fruits also. Palate is medium-bodied and well laced with drying tannins, but quite good weight as well. A tad angular.

Call me a throwback, but I still prefer these big zins that are so oafish to those afflicted with sensitive Euro-palates. At least when, as with this well-crafted wine from Edmeades, a high alcohol level (15.5 percent) is concealed behind gobs of fruit. This full-bodied red boasts intense flavors of blackberry, cassis and chocolate that combine to give it a Porto-like character without the sweetness. Somehow it manages to be burly and smooth at the same time. Serve it with food with the muscle to wrestle with it.

Terrifically juicy, with energetic plum and licorice flavors and sweet vanilla oak.

Cardinale creates only a single wine in vintage from fruit grown in Oakville's famous To Kalon, Mount Veeder's Veeder Peak, and Howell Mountain's Keyes vineyards. Each of these unique terroirs contributes the threads of flavor and aroma in Cardinale's singular tapestry of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Harmoniously balanced, this vintage presents velvety layers and layers of mocha java and blackberry.

Dark ruby. Dark berries, olive and black pepper on the nose and palate. Firm and tangy, with good clarity and a late note of candied licorice that carries through the finish. Easygoing and ready to drink.

Bright gold. Ripe pear and pineapple aromas are complicated by notes of beeswax and toasted grain. Smooth and fleshy, with broad tropical fruit flavors and a touch of bitter citrus pith. Finishes on a slightly warm note, with lingering spiciness and a touch of anise.

Delicious ripe raspberry flavors are accented by a touch of peppermint.

Zippy acidity lifts toasty oak, chocolate and black-fruit flavors.

Interesting nose of mint sauce, blackcurrant, spice, blueberry, pepper and oak. Lots of fruit offset by good acidity, cinnamon and clove spice with a hint of vanilla.

Developed fresh nose of spice, herb, red plum, oak, coffee, coconut, red and black fruit. Rich, earthy, complex and flashy - a fine combination. A very enticing wine with supple, ripe tannins. Lovely palate.

There's great acidic verve in this Pinot, which gives lift to bright cherry, raspberry and earth flavors.

This wild strawberry-infused red shows an appealing liveliness compared with most California Pinot Noirs.

Small amounts of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and others add to this red's complexity.

Straightforward citrus flavors are rich yet focused in this tasty KJ white.

Bright colour: convincingly avoids oily extraction on the one extreme and bland anonymity on the other; there are nuances of apricot/apricot kernel and a squeeze of citrus on the fresh palate. It won't be a struggle to find a food match.