Where Byron's regular '03 Pinot is all about immediate gratification, this single-vineyard release, a year older, is a darker, brooding wine. Instead of red cherries, you get black ones. Cassis, too, and sautéed mushrooms with a splash of balsamic. Still there's a delicious core of mocha. It's an exquisite, silky Pinot Noir, firm and classic, and addictively drinkable.

Impressive, peppery, vanilla nose with much welcomed complexity. A dry, elegant style with smoky, vanilla, chocolate, licorice, spicy blackberry jam, cassis, minty cedar flavours. Long and warm this will need 3-5 years to soften. A serious Legacy from an excellent year.

The graciousness of the fruit defies the tannic weight of this wine, leaving a velvet impression, remarkably approachable for a young Howell Mountain cabernet, and extremely delicious. It's from vines the Smith family, the founders of La Jota, originally planted in the late '70s. The structure is there, underpinning the fresh black fruit, the acidity edging it with eucalyptus. Plump and satin-textured on release, this should age into a beauty. Drink 2010-'12 with a grilled rib eye.

K-J's new Highland Series has whittled down the barrels and vineyards to a single elegant expression of Santa Maria fruit aged in only 30 percent new French oak barrels. Its flavour intensity is off the scale, yet the wine is polished, elegant and eminently worthy of the dinner table. Look for super, tropical fruit flavours and apple pie spiked with cinnamon and lime rind, and finished with a creamy lees undercoating. Terrific, to say the least.

Intense butterscotch, spicy vanilla, creamy hazelnut, baked pear, mineral flavours with a long buttered spice finish. A bit warm but wonderful finish. Delicious now but should improve for 2-4 years.

Boasts a dense saturated ruby/purple color, and a big, peppery, sweet nose of black cherries, raspberries, licorice, forest floor, and underbrush. This spicy Zinfandel possesses abundant richness, concentration, and intensity.

Offers up beautiful scents of flowers, blackberries, blueberries, charcoal, hot rocks, and smoky new oak. Rich, full-bodied, and tannic, this impressive effort possesses a Bordeaux-like elegance and complexity. It represents a combination of North Coast Cabernet with Bordeaux freshness and elegance. Give it 2-3 more years of bottle age, and enjoy it over the following 10-15 years.

An elegant, sweet nose of espresso roast, chocolate, berries, kirsch, smoke, incense, and roasted meats is followed by a full-bodied, unctuously-textured wine with superb fruit, richness, complexity, and length. Its sweet tannin and heady personality suggest current accessibility as well as the ability to age for 15-20 years.

Possesses elegant citrus oil, orange and lemon blossom notes, a beautifully textured, full-bodied mouthfeel, tremendous purity, and a long finish with well-integrated wood.

Smoky, plum, black raspberry, sandalwood, celery salt, barnyard, compost aromas. Rich, round, supple and intense with good acidity and balance. Ripe cherry, vanilla, licorice, orange pekoe, and cardamom flavours. Long, warm and intense with great fruit.

This gorgeously rich effort reveals a Pinot Noir-like sensitivity along with a seductive, fragrant nose of black raspberries, cherries, spice box, pepper, and earth. In the mouth, it's a flamboyant, seductive, expansive, full-bodied, savory wine with beautifully integrated acidity, wood, alcohol, and tannin. Drink this decadent Zin over the next 5-6 years.

Exhibits a deep ruby/purple color, more structure and tannin than its sibling, along with abundant amounts of creme de cassis fruit intermixed with notions of licorice and flowers. Structured with good minerality as well as a spicy, full-bodied finish, it should be at its peak between 2007-2018+.

An abyss of black pepper on the nose, with some whiffs of white cotton. Imagine strapping an eight-cylinder engine to a basket full of berries and black peppercorns and watching it go: That’s what this wine tastes like. It’s full-throttle and fruit-ripe, with lifted fruit, spice and black pepper on the finish. Imported by Yangarra Estate Vineyard.

An intriguing honeysuckle, orange rind, nectarine, and lemon butter-scented and flavored effort. The fleshy, full-bodied, rich, well-textured Chardonnay to drink over the next 2-3 years.

The softest, most flamboyant of this trio. It possesses a plump, seductive perfume of black currants, cherry liqueur, raspberries, plums, and figs, great ripeness, sweet tannin, full-bodied, powerful flavors, a silky palate, and an alluring voluptuousness. Drink it over the next 15+ years.

A contrast of plump, succulent fruit and hard, stony tannin, this gives a clear taste of Howell Mountain intensity while remaining floral and fine. The violet scents and the dark earthiness should grow into deeper complexity as it ages. Cellar through 2012 or '14.

Ironically, already out of stock because of the movie Sideways that never made it up to the spectacular Santa Maria Bench. Look for notes of dill and strawberry mixed with black cherry and rhubarb textures preview bits of cinnamon game and black fruit flavours. Stylish, intense pinot.

The Russian River pinot is hedonistic in style sporting plenty of mixed black fruits on the nose with streaks of barnyard in the background. Rich and supple, it is mouth-filling without too much sweetness. The finish is balanced with earthy strawberry notes. Delicious drinking pinot to accompany the turkey.

Offers up scents of kirsch liqueur, raspberries, roasted meats, and herbs, a sweet attack and mid-palate, stunning purity, and a long concentrated finish. This beauty should drink well for decade.

Boasts copious quantities of blackberry, licorice, peppery, fiery fruit and spice, good underlying acidity, and a full-throttle, blockbuster finish. Consume it over the next 7-8 years.

Reveals a dark ruby/purple color along with an elegant, Pinot Noir-like nose of crushed rocks, raspberries, and briery boysenberry fruit. Medium to full-bodied, ripe, extraordinarily well-balanced, and elegant, it should drink well for 5-7 years.

Displays a dense purple color along with huge flavor intensity, but its extremely high acidity is almost painful. I really do not know what to make of this wine. I suspect the high acid will allow it to age well past ten years, but whether it will ever completely open and be totally balanced is questionable.

Notions of peaches, honeysuckle, and pineapple are followed by a medium-bodied, elegant, crisp, stony style. IT could pass for a California version of a grand cru Chablis.