Very good body, complex nose, excellent tannins. Drink From 2013. Three Stars, 16/20

The melon-scented 2004 California Vintner's Reserve Sauvignon Blanc, at once brisk and packing plenty of fruit flavor.

As nice as this wine's layered aromas of ripe cherries, sweet oak and subtle herbaceousness are, its deep, and enormously fruity flavors are more impressive yet. A full-scaled Pinot in terms of its extraordinarily well-extracted fruit, it is optimally ripened, quite supple in feel and buffers its touch of last-minute heat with lots of oak-sweetened cherries. Its careful acidity furnishes the right note of brightness and life to the finish, and, like the best of its breed, this is one that can be enjoyed right away or safely laid down for a few years of guaranteed growth.

Complex nose and excellent tannins. The best wine from this Chateau in decades. Drink 2013-2020

Edmeades 2003 Zinfandel Mendocino-89 points. I enjoyed all three of the offerings I tasted, including the 2003 Zinfandel Mendocino, which exhibits abundant amounts of briery blueberry fruit along with hints of oak, kirsch, and spice box. Enjoy this big, savory, juicy Zin over the next 2-3 years.

There is but a meager bit of fruit at work here, and it does little enough to offset this dull, close-to-flaccid wine's slightly barky, dried-leaf distractions. Thick, soft and fairly dry at the end, this one has nowhere good to go.

Unbelievably, the VR Chardonnay is made entirely from estate-grown grapes. Look for a ripe, round, fresh and crisp chardonnay with green apple, citrus, peach skin, pear, buttery lees flavours with a floral, orange, buttery finish. Nice elegance and balance with some cool fruit characters. Very attractive style for food or sipping. A triumph of grape growing and winemaking repeated for 24 million bottles.

Nicely perfumed rose petal, plum and black cherry aromas make an easy, graceful entry on the palate, showing a hint of tartness but also zesty raspberry and wild berry notes. Clean and well structured. Drink now through 2009. 202 cases made.

Ripe red apple, grapefruit, melon, grassy aromas. Round, fresh palate with a touch of sweetness. Grapefruit, kiwi, baked apple, green melon skin flavours with a slightly buttery finish.

Some sauvignon blancs bring to mind cool water tumbling over polished rocks, a rushing creek, a river as snow melts. Others, like our Wine of the Week, Kendall-Jackson 2005 Vintner's Reserve California Sauvignon Blanc, are all sunlight. This wine is crisp and bright, like a cloudless summer morning. Among the fruit aromas - mostly apple and sweet citrus - there is a whisper of freshly cut hay. It is an endearing quality and one that makes the wine an excellent afternoon sip or before-dinner aperitif.

A rich sauvignon blanc. Flavors of peach, tangelo, lime, pippin apple and gooseberry. It has a soft texture, but a crisp finish.

This white had a bracing acidity to cut the natural sweetness of the riesling grape; it also helped emphasize the bratwurst's spice.

Top 100 90+ point wines under $25. This bottling of Grenache is Beautifully proportioned, with impressive depth and length and generous black cherry and pomegranite flavors. Winemaker Peter Fraser sources the estate-grown fruit from up to 60 year old vines and ages the wine for 15 months in 1-2 year old French barriques.

2004 Chardonnay Alexander Valley Musky aroma of pineapple, with a bit of heat. Sweet, round and fat, with a stony nuance and sound acidity keeping the ripe pineapple flavor from coming off as exotic. 87

The fruity, big-bodied Kendall-Jackson Grand Reserve 2003 comes with an extra measure of oaky richness.

Good bright ruby-red. Very ripe aromas of cassis, black cherry, graphite, iron, tobacco, menthol and spice cake. Lush and broad on entry, then sweeter and lusher in the middle palate than the Muse, with a captivating chocolatey quality and outstanding volume. As rich and full as this is, there's no sense of excess weight. Finishes long, dense and palate-saturating with major dusty tannins. This Pauillac is sweeter and deeper than Seillan's Pomerol, a comment on the comparative quality of cabernet sauvignon and merlot in California's North Coast.

Opens with a pure, clean, high-toned aroma, powerful yet delicate, of cherries, cola, coffee, cinnamon and smoky oak. In the mouth, the wine has fantastic density and concentration, rich in fruits and spices, but with a brilliant Pinotesque silkiness. Simply a marvelous wine.

From mountain vineyards comes this deep, dark, impressively intense Cab. Opens with a blast of new oaky smoke, char and vanilla, but once in the mouth, huge waves of flamboyant blackberry and cassis, black cherry and vanilla oak flavors unfold, with a meaty note. The wine is totally dry and balanced, and while it's drinkable now, it should improve through 2015

Ruby-red. Brooding, perfumed aromas of dark fruits, violet and chocolate. Sweet and intensely flavored, with lively acids framing the currant, black raspberry, mineral and dark chocolate flavors. Very densely packed wine, with the sheer material to support its big, ripe tannins. Give this plenty of aeration if you plan to open a bottle anytime soon. Or, better yet, lay it down for six to eight years.

Good medium ruby. An essence of cabernet on the nose, with blackberry, licorice and floral aromas complicated by an exotic suggestion of fruity tropical chocolate. Then large-scaled, fat and sweet in the mouth, with highly concentrated black raspberry and chocolate flavors. The powerful mountain tannins coat the front teeth. Like a cabernet syrup today, in need of at least seven or eight years of aging and likely to be long-lived.

Ruby-red. Sexy, varietally accurate aromas of currant, cedar, tobacco and violet. Rich and ripe but dry, with lovely purity of black cherry, chocolate and dusty earth flavors. The wine's lively acids and fine tannins frame the fruit and carry the finish, which features lovely aromatic character and brooding dark berry fruitiness. Classy, pure wine, built for a couple decades of life in the bottle. (I was unable to taste the 2004, as the wine had recently been racked.)