dry, medium-bodied, light oak, medium acidity. Always reliable for its ripe fruit flavors, K-J's Vintner's Reserve has gotten positively zingy in the 2002 vintage.

Impressive, smoky, peppery, vanilla nose spiked with spicy, cedar, licorice, clove, black olive and cassis jam aromas. Fine and much welcomed complexity. Rich, round, dry, elegant style but quite intense with grainy tannins. 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.

…intense, battened-down giant, exuding hints of violets and black tar and earth, still a baby given its potential longevity.

I could imagine drinking this wine throughout an entire four-course meal and it making everything from salad to steak and dessert, better. It's fabulously rich, dry, acidic and complex. The Santa Maria Valley is famous for the tropical fruits and spices this wine shows in spades.

Good plum, berry and light vanilla character. Medium body. Fine tannins. Fresh finish. Nicely done. But not outstanding. Best after 2004.

A good wine with a very good core of fruit and ripe tannins. Medium-bodied, with silky tannins and a long licorice and berry aftertaste. Lots of tobacco. Best after 2004.

sweet oak and mint aromas, voluptuous.

The delicious 200 Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay exhibits copious quantities of tropical fruits, subtle wood, medium body, underlying crisp acidity, and admirable purity. It is one of the two finest Chardonnay values in the marketplace

Made solidly in the style of Jess Jackson's mountain estate wines, a dark, dense Merlot of great intensity and weight. It possesses a laserlike concentration of sweet cassis and cherry fruit that is wrapped in significant tannins. Meets the challenge with such wines and achieves balance and finesse.

An exotic, flavorful wine, with tasty pear, peach, vanilla and smoky marshmallow flavors that show a bit of rawness from oak on the finish

A big, ripe, jammy sweet red with spicy, racy blackberry and wild berry jam flavors, making this at one point appealing for its fruitiness but also worthy of a warning that it is off-dry.

Ripe and juicy, with fleshy plum, blackberry and wild berry fruit that's well-centered and supple in texture, with a touch of leather and mineral. Drink now through 2007.

Everything that money can buy has gone into this wine, but it cannot rise above its vintage. It's rich in oak, with firm, rich tannins, and the winemaker squeezed black currant, plum and tobacco flavors from the grapes.

A polished wine, Kendall-Jackson's 2001 Vintner's Reserve Merlot is unusually complex for California merlot, which all too often are one-dimensional and jammy. Its ripe plum-like flavors intermingled with earthy spiciness make it an excellent choice for a holiday roast.

(Recent Wine of the Week Winners that make a good gift). Tangy fruit flavors of dark cherry and plum. A hint of pepper. Subdued, yet rich. Integrated tannins.

Smells and tastes just like what it is, a young, fresh and jammy wine, sharp in acidity and vibrant with black-berry and cherry flavors. Extremely dry, but with a nice ripe sheen.

Again Kendall-Jackson's Vintner's Reserve tops the chart here, mainly since the winery reduced production of the wine and improved quality with its 2001 vintage.

Always shows excellent fruit components, has a touch of oak flavors, and the balance is impeccable. At less than $15, this wine always satisfies.

Made entirely from a single block on the Santa Maria Bench, K-J's Chardonnay is big and rich on the nose with peach, mango, honey, creamy spicy lees fruit. Wow.

Succulent cherry fruit packed into a gentle, earthen tannin gives a sleek, integrated feel to this fat Napa cabernet. It's round and satisfying in middle, bracketed on either side by the smokiness of oak.

Intense and sturdy, with chewy tannins wrapped around a dense, concentrated core of earth and blackberry fruit that's well-centered. Drink now through 2009.

2004 ARROWOOD CHARDONNAY ALARY RANCH The Burgundian-styled 2004 Chardonnay Alary Vineyards (100% barrel fermented, put through malolactic fermentation, and aged for 10 months in French wood) exhibits aromas and flavors of pineapple, hazelnut, brioche, and orange skins. This complex white possesses great fruit and acidity as well as a full-bodied power with the oak kept well in the background.