Lokoya Howell Mountain 2003 This latest single-vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from winemaker Christopher Carpenter is a refined and inky brew. The nose gives off violets, spicy plum, cassis, vanilla ice cream, and chocolate, and the finish is a lengthy tour de force that culminates in a satisfying minerality.

This Napa Cabernet's tannins tower as high as the mountain from which it is sourced, yet they are pleasingly coated in black cherry, blackberry, Christmas-cake spices, and a twist of mint.

Lokoya Winery Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 (Diamond Mountain District, Napa Valley) Black as night, with intense, blackberry tastes and hints of chocolate, mint and tobacco. Huge, but surprisingly elegant and balanced, with a long, dry, peppery finish.

The most common issue with inexpensive Pinot Noir is unbearable lightness. There is nothing thin or insipid about this earthy Pinot from Monterey, a perfect Pinot fix for tailgate parties and savory autumn dishes. It shows notes of forest floor and mushroom, with a hint of strawberry and raspberry on the palate.

This wine is an overachiever from Monterey where cool ocean breezes and foggy days build great Pinots. The fruit is lush and varietally correct — tea leaf, bing cherry, cranberry and spice. It’s a great wine to lure a new generation of wine drinkers to a winemaker’s holy grail. And it is indeed liberated: from heavy alcohol and overly ripe fruit.

This Cabernet comes in three different labels, displaying the archetypes of the explorer, the business man and the adventurer. In taste, the wine is smoky and soft, with plum, cassis and dark cherry all making a play.

If one must find a liberated angle, this is an approachable, delicious Cabernet free of aggressive tannins and stewed fruit flavors. Aromas of cherry, blackberry, currant, rich dark chocolate and vanilla are followed by dark fruit flavors with wonderfully integrated oak and braced with acidity. The Cabernet fruit gets an assist from touches of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Alcohol is a well-mannered 13.5 percent.

While Sauvignon Blancs are often herbal and grassy, sometimes fermented in oak and infused with spice and smoky cedar, this one is different. It’s crisp and dry with bright flavors. It has a great spine of acidity to add balance to the fruit — citrus, passionfruit, lime, kiwi, green apple. It’s stainless steel fermented and aged.

This new California producer makes a very good sauvignon blanc and pinot noir for the money. The name is supposed to denote the producer's desire to push beyond the boundaries. Whatever. The labels are pretty wild, but depict a carefree lifestyle. The sauvignon blanc is crisp and bright with delicious citrus and grapefruit notes.

Wines To Toast Dad Sonoma’s Alexander Valley delivers both valley floor and mountain fruit, giving winemakers the opportunity to utilize various elevations to craft a harmonious wine. Jess Jackson realized this years ago when he created his Legacy Wines, meant to showcase age-worthy wines from the region with the highly structured, powerful, and focused Legacy Cabernet Sauvignon layering anise, wild sage, black cherry, pencil lead, and blackberry.

Options abound with Mother's Day Chardonnay Legacy Chardonnay from the Field Stone Vineyard in Alexander Valley delivers the dream of founder Jess Jackson to create age-worthy, elegant Chardonnay with a sense of place, enhancing a delicate, inviting palate.

Wines of the Week This estate on Howell Mountain was first founded by Swiss immigrant Frederick Hess in 1898. Initial success at winegrowing was noted by awards at the 1900 Paris Exposition, but prohibition was once again the death knell to a successful property. Today, the property is owned by the Jess Jackson family. This Merlot offers intense aromas and flavors of blackberry, toasty oak, cola and dark chocolate with notes of mineral and floral perfume.

At the end of each year, I look back over the wines I've tasted and put together a list of the best of the year. The Top 5 Wines of 2017 featured selections from California, Washington, Virginia and Australia. This year's top wines come from California, Australia and Italy. Here they are in no particular order... While it may still be viewed as controversial by some, merlot indeed can make great wine - especially when made by winemaker, Chris Carpenter. The 2015 Merlot* vinted & bottled by La Jota Vineyard Co. was bold, yet nuanced.

October is Global Merlot Month. This social media event brings together merlot lovers from across the world to celebrate this grape variety. To celebrate here on the Nittany Epicurean, my ongoing series of discovery of some of the great wines of California will take us to Napa for this excellent merlot: 2015 Merlot vinted & bottled by La Jota Vineyard Co. (Oakville, California). The wine showed a dark ruby almost opaque color. Blackberry, cassis, raspberry, vanilla, black cherry and oak all arrived on the deep nose. Black cherry, raspberry, blackberry, vanilla, cola, mossy earth and oak followed on a palate driven by luscious cherry notes. The wine exhibited excellent structure and length, along with moderate tannins. It would pair well with a classic preparation of Beef Stroganoff.

Giving the gift of fine wine And now two wines that will make any red wine drinker fall in love with Merlot again, thanks to Jackson Family Wines and winemaker Christopher Carpenter. Carpenter established a premier reputation as the longtime winemaker at the highly regarded Kendall-Jackson owned wineries Cardinale and Lokoya. “If farmed right in the proper locations and treated similar to cabernet sauvignon, merlot can be great, just as it is in other countries.” In this case Carpenter is talking about the high-elevation vineyards that source the 2015 Mount Brave and 2015 La Jota. These are serious, complex, full-bodied wines. Mount Brave, from vineyards on Mount Veeder, is fleshy with deep fruit, cocoa, spice and mint. LaJota, from Howell Mountain, is densely packed with earth, mocha, spice and lovely freshness.

The Weekly Dozen From the upper east side, it is juicy and tangy – a wild ride with rich fruit and good minerality and acidity.

Merlot is Staging a Comeback This Merlot from La Jota Vineyard Co. offers intense, concentrated blackberry, plum, and mocha on the nose but then gives way to plush, tangy fruit and mouth-filling mountain structure.

The Best Merlot Wine To Enjoy Now: MerlotMe La Jota Vineyard Co. is another brand producing another stunning Merlot, also made by Christopher Carpenter. This is made from fruit from Howell Mountain, a vineyard I’ve actually visited with the La Jota Team which is incredible. You feel as if you’re at the top of Napa Valley with rolling vineyards in the most secluded nook of the mountain. Tasting the wine in the vineyard it was grown in added an element to the flavor that’s hard to explain…. The 2015 La Jota Merlot showcases the mountain terroir with amazing body, dark coffee and chocolate flavors combined with ripe black fruit and a lovely big bold taste on the palate.

Me, Merlot & I: Drinking Merely Merlot Smooth, seamless, this Merlot (with 10% Petite Verdot added in) surprises in that the acidity is more pronounced. It’s a big boy at 15% alcohol but also has a lot of grace for a hefty wine. You’ll find rich black cherry, blueberry, blackberry, boysenberry along with pronounced cedar, vanilla, and anise. Winemaker Chris Carpenter does not shy away from a bold, expressive wine.

Merlot is Back! Celebrate Merlot Month You might have a different opinion, but based on what we have been tasting, Merlot is back! It has returned from it’s boring, stuffy world to be bright, beautiful and interesting. The noble grape is back in style and brings more diversity with it. Chris Carpenter, winemaker at La Jota Vineyard Co., is producing some great bottles made with the grape. Letting the terrior of the vineyards show, his work is interesting and a perfect example of where Merlot is headed. So this Merlot month, and really all of the fall and winter season, get back into Merlot. We started with the 2015 La Jota Howell Mountain Merlot and were not disappointed. It’s bright with red fruit notes and a balance of earthy hints to round out the wine. Drink it now or wait a few years, either way, this Merlot is dressed to impress.

From Toad Hollow to Mt. Brave: A Surprise Choice for Thanksgiving We also liked La Jota, from Howell Mountain. This and the Mt. Brave are both properties of Jackson Family Wines, which sent us the bottles for tasting. Both were made by Christopher Carpenter, whom Dottie spoke to earlier this year about his stunning, mountain-grown Cardinale Cabernet Sauvignon. When we talked with him a few days ago about the wines, he told us he had been speaking a lot lately about Merlot in anticipation of Merlot Month, which was October. “What I think is happening is that the places where some of the weaker Merlots were being grown are gone and what’s left are these jewels, these sweet spots around Napa Valley for Merlot and we happen to have a couple of them,” he said... The La Jota is made from fruit from two historic, neighboring Howell Mountain vineyards: W.S. Keyes vineyards, the first vineyard planted (1888) on Howell Mountain, and La Jota, planted 10 years later by Keyes’s neighbor, Frederick Hess. Carpenter made the first vintage of La Jota Merlot in 2005, a year after “Sideways.” Did he or Jackson, a consummate entrepreneur and visionary, have any second thoughts about launching a new Merlot label then? “Not in the least,” said Carpenter, who was named winemaker for La Jota that same year. “Keyes vineyard was the wellspring for Duckhorn’s Howell Mountain Merlot back in the ’90s,” he said. “I had been working with that Merlot for a while because the Merlot portion of Cardinale is from that exact block.” He added: “Jess wanted to create a wine that was new to La Jota and that was our contribution to the history of La Jota.” The first year, Carpenter made 200 cases and now he’s up to a little over 1,000. Unlike the Mt. Brave, the La Jota is 10 percent Petit Verdot, which he says adds structural tannins, black pepper and spiciness. “That wine has become very popular as people have discovered it and have understood that this is a wine that has its own character, its own distinction and speaks to what can be done with Merlot on a place like Howell Mountain,” Carpenter said. What does he think of our idea of having one for Thanksgiving? “That’s fantastic,” he said. “Why not have both?” Hmmm….

7 Wines That Will Make You Even More Grateful at Thanksgiving 2018 Merlot’s making a comeback in the wine world and the 2015 La Jota is a prime reason why. A wonderful balance of fruit (especially blackberry) and earthiness, it’s a mid-bodied wine that will defy expectations of what a Merlot should be.

2015 La Jota Howell Mountain Merlot – for those of you who don’t understand the complexity of Merlot, you have never tasted a Merlot from mountain fruit. And Howell Mountain Merlot is some of the best that Napa Valley has to offer. This wine has notes of dark espresso, chocolate, blackberry, spice, and herbs. It is a blend of 90 percent Merlot and 10 percent Petit Verdot.

15 wine gift ideas for any budget In addition to Merlot (90%), some Petit Verdot (10%) was also blended in. All of the fruit comes from their Howell Mountain Estate and nearby W.S. Keyes Vineyard. This wine represents what truly great Merlot can achieve when grown in the correct spot and tended properly afterwards. Blackberry, boysenberry and black currant are evident from the first whiff through the palate. Also present are wisps of spice and espresso. Chocolate covered cherries and graphite emerge on the long, structured finish.

A classic in the making; revealing shades of personality, from sultry to burly and back. A.