Big, juicy, jammy red's full potential will be realized with rustic foods. Our wine of the week, Murphy-Goode 2007 Liar's Dice Zinfandel is big, juicy and jammy, with a warm sweetness buoyed by the heat and fat of nearly 15 percent alcohol. The wine's all black fruit and topsoil, with veins of black licorice and tannins that are broad and smooth in the middle and just a tad rough on the outermost edges of the palate. The wine's full potential will be reached with rustic foods, from a classic hamburger, meatloaf and spaghetti with meatballs to grilled pizzas and all manner of sausage, provided there is no chicken involved.

Nose of ripe strawberry and a bit of spice. Very smooth and harmonious in the mouth with no hard edges, just ripe fruit and a mouth-filing strawberry experience with a mineral note. A wonderful wine to drink by itself or with salmon and pork dishes. This was a favorite of several diners during a dinner.

Concentrated and muscular, with cassis, plum, graphite and chocolate notes. Firm tannins need time, yet it's fresh and focused.

The Jackson and Hartford families established this vineyard on the far Sonoma Coast in hopes of crafting Pinot Noir at the limits of its ability to ripen. The magnificent 2007 vintage has resulted in a wine of unusual tension. It's very ripe in black and red cherry pie filing and sweet oak flavors, but retains the acidity of it's cool-climate origins, and even offers a feral taste of bloody meat. Drink this impressive, complex wine now and through 2015.

A brilliant wine, massively sculpted and monumental, that shows how great this vineyard is. The wine shows densely concentrated flavors of blackberries and licorice, with the loveliest accent of sweet worn leather and rhubarb, flourished with the dusty spices that always characterize a fine Santa Maria Pinot Noir. Best now - 2013.

It's impossible to imagine this wine could have existed even five years ago, even though it hails from the extraordinary Nielson Vineyard that for many years has yielded Byron's best Pinot Noirs, as well as Chardonnays. The ripeness level is something only modern techniques could achieve, and the 2007 vintage was great. Ultra-rich in blackberries, cherries and dark chocolate, the wine retains a silky texture and is imposingly full-bodied. Drink now - 2013.

The vineyard is near Occidental, in the cooler southwestern part of the valley, and you can taste the fog and the sea and crisp nights in the acidity like biting into a Gravenstein apple. Yet this perfect vintage has resulted in perfect fruit. It's hard to imagine richer blackberry, cherry and licorice flavors. Impeccable and impressive, but young. Best in the narrow window of 2011-2013.

There's a sweet fruit and pasty quality to this wine that's reminiscent of a cherry tart, with its vanilla, brown sugar, cinnamon and smoky buttery pie crust flavors. It's very delicious but also brilliantly structured as a wine, with fine tannins and a sunburst of citrusy acids. One of the best Carneros Pinots of the vintage. It will provide pleasurable drinking now-2013 at the least.

Planted to the Martini clone in the late 1980's, Arrendell sits in a cold spot in Green Valley, where restricted yields produce fruit with a wild berry character and foresty spice. This 2007 is rich and complete, the texture making it satisfying all the way through. Even so, the brightness of the fruit cuts through the wine's darker tones and leaves a mouthwatering impression. It's a boysenberry-cherry-earth combination that would be delicious with roast duck.

Cambria released a range of pinot noirs made from individual clones, some Dijon, some heritage clones from California. Clone 4, also known as the Pommard clone, is the original planting at Julia's Vineyard, with vines dating back to 1970. The plants have used that time to acclimate themselves to the cool benchlands of Santa Maria, producing a bright, spicy pinot noir with refreshing length of flavor. It's lovely and complete, a combination of red raspberry, bright strawberry and darker, savory hints of plum. Decant a bottle for duck rillettes.

Shows everything great about its vintage and terroir. It's a strong, young Pinot Noir, rich in tannins and dense in almost jammy blackberries, cherries and chocolaty cola that are delicious in and of themselves. As good as it is, this is a wine that wants some time to integrate and mellow. Give it until 2011, if you can.

Fat, fleshy and ripe, showing masses of blackberry nectar, smoky-sweet new oak, vanilla, cocoa and Asian spices that are delivered with pinpoint focus and depth. Crisp acidity gives it a fresh, clean feel. Flamboyant and impressive now for its sheer opulence, but Howell Mountain tannins give it the room to gain bottle complexity through at least 2018.

Shows the acidity and firm tannins of this fine vineyard, and also the incredibility ripe fruit of the 2007 vintage. The combination of the two makes for a wine to cellar. It's dry and full-bodied, with masses of blackberries, black cherries, cola, licorice and sandalwood. Good now, with decanting, with roast lamb, but should begin to develop bottle complexity after 2012.

Shows the ripe, California character of a fine Pinot Noir, with masses of black cherries, red currants and cola, and also the dusty spices of Santa Maria Valley. Tastes a bit direct and primary now, but elegant and dry. Nice with a perfectly grilled steak.

An enigma of a Chardonnay. The wine is young but its deep color, the integrated and subdued nature of its flavors and the rich honey and smoky notes on the nose and palate all suggest development. The Alexander Valley appellation would suggest a ripe, warm-climate style and the wine is in fact full-bodied and rich, with 14.5 percent alcohol. But the wine comes from grapes grown at 1500 feet altitude, and its acidity is fresh and enlivening. It’s a California Chardonnay, but it has the understatement of the Old World. Soft, rich, long, caressing -- a wonderful Chardonnay.

Air reveals the depth of flavor in this blend of several estate vineyards, with an impression of freshly turned earth, roses and wild strawberries. But the wine takes a day to arrive there, initially reduced and hidden behind the scent of mustard greens. As the sulfur blows off, the wine builds on its foresty fruit, opening into an expansive finish. Give this several years in the cellar or hours in a decanter before serving with roast duck.

Like many pinots made from Dijon clones in California, this is a big, black-fruited wine. Yet it shows some restraint, with a bright shot of red rose coming up out of the blackness. Richly oaked, this could use a year or two to absorb some of its wood tannin. Then serve with pappardelle and boar ragu.

One of the ripest of Hartford's new Pinot's, this is a full-bodied and very rich wine. It offers extreme flavor in place of subtlety, offering a massive palate wash of blackberries and cherries that veers into Lifesaver candy. The bet is age-ability. Hold until after 2011.

Massively rich in fruit, this Pinot floods the palate with jammy flavors of cherries, raspberries and cola, accentuated with the sweet vanilla and caramel of oak. It's a delicious, opulent wine that calls for dramatic food pairings. A grilled steak with a rich wine-based gravy would be perfect.

There's a lot of coastal character in this Carneros wine, with scents of kelp and salt air. That cools the layers of fruit flavor, from strawberry to seedy raspberries, while it brightens the fruit tannins. Serve this with duck rillettes.

Pale, bright straw. Precise, high-pitched aromas of citrus peel, quinine, flowers and lemongrass. Juicy, fine-grained and youthfully taut, with racy acidity contributing to the minerally impression of this pungent wine. Not at all a fleshy style but in no way hard-edged. Finishes tight but persistent, with continuing floral and citrus qualities. Most of this wine was raised in stainless steel, the rest in one- and two-year-old barrels.

This is a full-throttle, flavourful, if not very refined, pinot noir. Very intense, aromatics, with sweet cherry, vanilla, toast and spice - all in good proportion. It's medium-weight, with a warm, juicy ambiance, then a fairly tannic, hard and hot finish. Age this a year or 2.