Earth, eucalyptus, red fruits, cedar. Balanced and penetrating.

Drink it over the next 3-4 years for its berry, coffee, herb-tinged, medium-bodied personality.

Rich and fruity, boasting lots of plum, black cherry, currant and spicy mint notes, cedary oak and plush tannins. Packs a wallop with its flavor.

Sweet oak and milder notes of cherries are joined by a bit of leafy, dried-brush spice in the direct, moderately ripe aromas. Immediately likable in the mouth, the wine offers a tasty mix of concentrated cherry and sweet oak flavors that is trimmed with the faintest touch of herbs. Long, lively and always rounded in feel, it provides plenty of near-term enjoyment but should improve slightly over the next three or four years.

Spicy currant and herb notes, picking up a cedary edge on the finish.

It's sweet-cream and spice qualities are inviting.

Ripe cherry and herbal tones are nicely fit with a sweet oak background. Can be served any time over the next five years or so with broiled or marinated meats.

Recommended.

A dramatic wine made with 15 percent cabernet franc. The wine has explosive fruit and a long finish.

A solid effort, with ripe currant, cherry and spicy oak flavors, but also has a leathery, barnyardy edge. Balanced and ready to drink now.

This has a broad spectrum of flavors, mouth-filling blackberry fruit and a hint of chocolate. Forward in style with soft tannins and long finish.

Try these selections if your post-holidays wallet is a bit light From the brand started in 1983, Kendall-Jackson has grown into one of the world's larger family-owned wine companies. The Vintner's Reserve line remains the company's backbone.

Very fine quality, this is a stylish, finely flavored Merlot that is supple, well balanced, moderately intense, and long and harmonious on the finish. In aroma/flavor, it tastes of black currant, cherry, blackberry, toast, and cedar. Lightly tannic, it will develop with further aging. 90% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3.5% Malbec, 1% Petit Verdot, 0.5% Cabernet Franc. 5 stars, exceptional.

Grand Reserve is Kendall Jackson winemaker’s blend of their mountain, ridge, hillside and benchland grapes grown along California’s cool coastal appellations. The wine was aged in mostly French oak, 28% new, but does a great job of integrating the oak for complexity and structure. Look for red currant and cherry flavors with background notes of cedar, cocoa and spice.

Gold Medal

True to the power and intensity of wines created from the 2013 vintage in California, this baby will rock your socks: It has big, bold, dark berry flavors with notes of dark plum, dark cherry, dark chocolate and cedar. Tannins are refined; acidity provides structure. It was aged 17 months in mostly French oak. It's no wallflower.

Spicy oak frames the plush, juicy red plum and black fruit; the supple, mouth-coating tannins are balanced by palate-whisking acidity. It delivers more than its relatively modest price would suggest.

This is Merlot you can almost chew - the firm tannins; the concentrated fruit; the spicy, toasty oak; the balance from the acidity; and the alcohol that adds to the body. The Merlot is further braced with Cabernet Sauvignon and some Malbec and Petit Verdot. Imagine an intense jam made of cherries and plums, spiked with espresso.

A tasty, approachable red with notes of currant, plum and anise. Nice length.

Hint of oak, aromas and flavors of black cherries and milk chocolate, long, smooth finish.

Merlot, like Syrah, has suffered its share of arrows and slings, yet its affable, outgoing aspects are still beloved by many and a careful look at retailers’ shelves will reveal more than a few very fine values...and the very solid, keenly focused (one star) Kendall-Jackson Grand Reserve Sonoma County 2012 Merlot.

We are both surprised and bemused by Merlot’s ongoing lack of respect, but if that explains why so many attractive examples can be found at such reasonable prices, then we are not about to complain. KENDALL-JACKSON checks in with its second Best Buy mention this month for its Grand Reserve Sonoma County 2012 ($26.00)...

Well-stated, black cherry fruit is joined by a hint of tea-leaf herbaceousness and trim touch of hardwoody sweetness in the attractive aromas here, and the wine follows with like-minded, medium-depth flavors that are made all the easier to like by its mannerly balance and tactile polish. While certain to keep comfortably and improve for a few years, it is entirely enjoyable now, and, considering its minimal increase in price over the winery’s Vintner’s Reserve version, it is definitely the one to buy of the Kendall-Jackson pair.