The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Spring Mountain has a blackish ruby color and a beautifully sweet nose of spring flowers, blackberries, and charcoal. It is full-bodied, has fabulous purity, great texture, and a finish of close to a minute. This is a sensationally opulent, rich Cabernet Sauvignon that should drink beautifully for 20-25 or more years. Four absolutely stunning Cabernet Sauvignons from winemaker Chris Carpenter, these are the creme de le creme of some of the Jess Jackson-owned Napa vineyards. All mountain sites, all 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, all unfined and unfiltered - and all four are of irrefutably great quality. The case productions are relatively limited, from a very small 120-cases from the Howell Mountain and Spring Mountain sites to nearly 800 cases of Mt. Veeder. They all share several things in common - great ripeness, great texture, and fabulous aging potential.

NUMBER SEVEN - Most of the grapes came from the Annapolis Vineyard, with some from Seascape. While the vintage was cool, it gave incredibly long hangtime. Dry, crisp and delicate, the wine has a silky voluptuousness that makes it irresistible, with pie-filling cherry and black raspberry flavors finished with Asian spice. New French oak adds toast and vanilla sweetness. It's expensive, but still a bargain.

Even better than the Four Hearts is the 2006 Chardonnay Stone Cote, a compelling Chardonnay with glorious notes of crushed rocks, white currants, nectarine, and white peach emerging from its superbly nuanced, full-bodied style. The wine has restraint, but effortless concentration and richness as well as impeccable balance. It is best drunk in its next several years of life.

A real blockbuster, and one meant for 25-30 years of cellaring, is the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Monte Rosso Vineyard, made from 50-year-old vines. Treated like the Reserve Speciale, aged 30 months in oak prior to being bottled unfined and unfiltered, this shows off this hallowed terroir that is now owned by the Gallo family. A very full-bodied wine with notes of cedar and black cherry liqueur intermixed with creme de cassis, graphite, and loamy soil notes, the wine is deep, chewy, full-bodied, and intense. The tannins are high, but the fruit and concentration are more than adequate to match them. Give it 3-4 years of bottle age, and drink it over the following 25-30+ years. This should be a brilliant wine down the road.

This 1,000-case cuvee from three separate Napa vineyards – the Veeder Peak Vineyard high up on Mt. Veeder, the Keyes Vineyard on Howell Mountain, and the Stags Leap Vineyard on the valley floor – is a blend of 89% Cabernet Sauvignon and 11% Merlot. Deep ruby/purple to the rim, with notes of graphite, black cherry and black currant liqueur, licorice, and spice box, the wine has silky tannins, full body, a gorgeously layered, rich mouthfeel, and a long finish with moderately high tannins and refreshing acidity. It’s a big wine for sure, but it has uncanny elegance, purity, and length.

The age worthiness and brilliant quality of Dick Arrowood’s Reserve Speciale Cabernet Sauvignon is reflected time and time again in blind tastings when it is inserted against Napa’s finest. Recently, the 1995 acquitted itself at the top of the group in a tasting of some of the very best 1995s from Napa. This is a sensational wine that is blended from different top vineyard sources in Sonoma Valley. The 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Speciale, which spent 30 months in oak before being bottled unfiltered, has a deep ruby/purple color and a gorgeous nose of cedar, crushed rocks, black cherry, and cassis, with some licorice and roasted herbs. The wine has fabulous intensity, a full-bodied, opulent palate, ripe tannin, and a long 50-second finish. Arrowood made just under 2,100 cases of this superb wine, and for the price, it is a relatively good value in high-end northern California Cabernet. This wine should drink well for 10-20+ years.

This wine is so loaded with glycerine, it actually pours slow from the bottle, like honey. With 17.4 grams of residual sugar, it's decadently, deliriously sweet, but sugar, it's not its only charm. There's a fabulous flood of apricots, pineapples, peaches and limes, concentrated to their essence and geléed, enriched with pure vanilla and clover honey and dusted with cinnamon. Doesn't that sound good?

A dead ringer for a great vintage of St.-Emilion’s most expensive wine, Ausone, the 2005 Le Desir (49.9% Cabernet Franc, 39.3% Merlot, 8.7% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 2.1% Malbec) has an inky/purple color and a gorgeous nose of crushed rocks, violets, licorice, sweet black cherries, blackberries, and currants. The wine is full-bodied, like all of these wines, rich, but ferociously tannic and dominated by its mineral component. This is an exceptional wine that needs to be forgotten for at least 5-10 years and drunk thereafter. Whatever one says about Verite, these are wines with the aging potential and backwardness of a first-growth Bordeaux. Patience is most definitely a primary consideration when contemplating a purchase, as these are not wines for near-term gratification.

The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Diamond Mountain exhibits a fabulous scorched earth, almost volcanic ash sort of nose with blackberry and cassis notes. Dense ruby/purple-colored, with full-bodied power and richness, relatively soft tannins, and a sensationally layered mouth feel, this is concentrated but beautifully complex already and set for at least 15-20 years of evolution. Four absolutely stunning Cabernet Sauvignons from winemaker Chris Carpenter, these are the creme de le creme of some of the Jess Jackson-owned Napa vineyards. All mountain sites, all 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, all unfined and unfiltered - and all four are of irrefutably great quality. The case productions are relatively limited, from a very small 120-cases from the Howell Mountain and Spring Mountain sites to nearly 800 cases of Mt. Veeder. They all share several things in common - great ripeness, great texture, and fabulous aging potential.

Austere and dominated by its tannic structure and crushed rock minerality, the dark ruby/purple-colored 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is easily the most backward and most Bordeaux-like of this group. Firmly structured with some austerity, the wine is intense, rich, full-bodied, and loaded with potential, but backward at present. It should be cellared for at least 5-6 years, and drunk over the following 25. Four absolutely stunning Cabernet Sauvignons from winemaker Chris Carpenter, these are the creme de le creme of some of the Jess Jackson-owned Napa vineyards. All mountain sites, all 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, all unfined and unfiltered - and all four are of irrefutably great quality. The case productions are relatively limited, from a very small 120-cases from the Howell Mountain and Spring Mountain sites to nearly 800 cases of Mt. Veeder. They all share several things in common - great ripeness, great texture, and fabulous aging potential.

Another gorgeous wine is Dick Arrowood’s 2005 Syrah Saralee’s Vineyard. He has always done an exemplary job with Syrah, long before it became so popular in California. He co-ferments it with 3% Viognier, and the result is a dark ruby/purple-colored wine with plenty of chocolatey blackberry fruit notes, medium to full body, super freshness, purity, and a sumptuous texture. This is stunning stuff to drink over the next 5-6 years.

The 2006 Chardonnay Upper Barn (a 1,700- to 1,850-foot elevation vineyard) has a beautiful integration of wood and is the biggest, richest, and longest of all these Chardonnays. It seems to have a more noble pedigree, with additional complexity, depth, and intensity. This is a superb Chardonnay that is so full, rich, and well-endowed, it could have been made by the master wine goddess herself, Helen Turley. Drink it over the next 7-8 years.

My favorite of this group, is the 2006 Zinfandel Dina’s Vineyard (15.8% alcohol). From another 100-year-old parcel of seven acres of head-trained, dry-farmed vines, this wine offers copious quantities of raspberry and blueberry fruit, a full-bodied, peppery, spicy personality, and oodles of glycerin and depth. It is a beauty and a superb Zinfandel.

A stunning wine is the 2006 Zinfandel Fanucchi-Wood Road Vineyard (100-year-old vines in sandy loam soils). This dense ruby/purple-colored wine shows notes of black raspberry, sweet cherry, roasted herbs, pepper, and soil notes. It is full-bodied, powerful, with head-spinning levels of alcohol (15.8%). The wine has terrific purity and should drink nicely for 4-6 years.

There are just under 1,600 cases of this wine. The 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Sycamore Vineyard (another Rutherford Bench vineyard, but in this case, biodynamically farmed) is a blend of 83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot, and 6% Cabernet Franc given the same treatment as the Bosche Vineyard. Deep ruby/purple with an even more complex and evolved nose than the Bosche, the wine shows notes of cedar, fruitcake, black currants, cherries, smoke, and pain grille. Dense, rich, full-bodied fruit flavors coat moderate tannins. The wine is savory, mouth-filling, and quite deep and layered. It should drink well for 15-20 years as well. Bravo!

They kept this Cab back all this time, presumably at some cost to the company, but consumers are the beneficiaries. Everything has mellowed. The wine, with 1% Petit Verdot, is like hands of cassis, dark chocolate and oak massaging the palate. The grapes were sourced from top vineyards in the Dry Creek, Sonoma and Alexander Valleys. Drink now-2010.

An impressively endowed effort, this features a slightly lifted, floral component to its bouquet that adds to its complexity, blending seamlessly with scents of dark plum, vanilla, smoke, coffee and spice. The mouthfilling flavors frame bold fruit in length. Drink now - 2015.

Intense, ripe-cherry fruit is the centerpiece of this deep and keenly defined young Merlot, and it is joined by lots of sweet oak spice, suggestions of chocolate and hints of fresh herbs that make for a genuinely complex and involving expression of the varietal. The wine is fairly plush and fleshy in feel as only a good Merlot can be, and, if arguably a little rough and rugged at the finish just now, it asks only for some three to five years of forbearance while it reaches for a fuller measure of supple richness.

From the Jackson family's Knights Valley vineyard adjacent to the Peter Michael estate, Trace is the central block dedicated to Kendall-Jackson, a southwest-facing ridge planted on gravelly, volcanic soils. It's a warm spot during the day that cools dramatically at night, maintaining the freshness in this 2004, a tension between cool black cherry flavors and warmer touches of fig. Mineral tannins add dimension, so the wine feels both intense and elegant, sleek and supple.

Succulent wild-blueberry flavors take on the earthiness of this wine's tannin and the espresso-roast coffee scents of its oak. It's black and untamed, as if energized by cool forest air in the mountains above Napa. The fruit is what lasts, approachable now if you decant it for squab wrapped in pancetta with a wild mushroom risotto. Grown at Jackson family's Veeder Peak Vineyard, this will probably reach maturity around ten years from the vintage.

Beautifully focused varietal aromas of currants, root beer, vanilla extract with wisps of briar and toast take this special effort to the top of the very formidable group of single-vineyard bottlings authored by Kendall-Jackson.

The 2005 Pinot Noir Far Coast Vineyard is an exceptional Pinot Noir. Dark ruby in color, with a beautiful nose of rose petals, strawberry and cherry jam, forest floor, and peat moss, the wine also has an undeniable minerality about its character, with great fruit, terrific texture, and a long finish. This is a superb Pinot that should drink nicely for 5-6 years.

The 2005 Pinot Noir Arrendell Vineyard, which is made from the oldest vines (32-year-old heritage Martini clone Pinot Noir), exhibits a Grenache-like kirsch liqueur and raspberry fruitiness. Elegant, with medium to full-bodied flavors, great fruit on the attack and mid-palate, and a savory, medium to full-bodied finish, this wine should drink nicely for 5-6 years.

The 2005 Pinot Noir Velvet Sisters from the Savoy and Falk Vineyards in Anderson Valley is a classic example of this area. Bluer fruits with copious notes of flowers jump from the glass of this dark ruby-colored wine. It is nuanced and elegant, with plenty of stuffing, but lovely balance and a feminine personality. Drink this wine over the next 4-5 years.

From the high-pedigree of the Bosche Vineyard, the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon Bosche, a blend of 88% Cabernet Sauvignon and 12% Merlot aged in French oak for 24 months, exhibits an opaque ruby/purple color and a wonderfully sweet nose of camphor, underbrush, black currants, and spice. The wine is deep, full-bodied, with superb richness, depth, and intensity. This is a beauty with silky tannins and low acidity. It should drink beautifully for 15-20+ years.