The best wine yet from Yangarra, the Australian winery owned by Kendall-Jackson of California, is its debut Yangarra Estate Grenache McLaren Vale Old Vine 2002 (93, $25), a real thoroughbred made from 80-year-old vines growing along the top contours of the home vineyard, the old Norman's Estate. Yangarra also made a wonderfully juicy Grenache-Shiraz Mourvèdre McLaren Vale 2002 (91, $25).

This estate-grown syrah is vibrant from the color- a beautiful violet edge to black - right through to the expressive finish - red edges to black fruit, scents of flint, orange zest, rosewater. The complex layers form an aromatic density, all built on a bright berry and deeper, beefier flavor. Decant a bottle for lamb with couscous and Provencal herbs.

Quite simply put, this is a sturdy, deeply extracted Pinot that you can sink your teeth into. It has plenty of mass and the structure to go with it, but it happily manages to be fruity from beginning to end. Almost brooding and with lots of potential, it is some years away from polish. It might work in the near-term with hearty roast meats, but it's greatest gifts will only be seen with age. Set aside for at least three or four years and expect to grow for more.

A conserve of blueberry and orange zest, this wine is pure fruit up front, then a wallop of tannin in the end. Potent, wild syrah, you could tame that power and make use of the wine's acidity with marlin in a red wine sauce.

Noticeably hazy and filled with inviting aromas of apple pulp, sweet lemons and creamy oak, this solid and unreservedly rich wine is equally generous with its fruit on the palate. It may be just a touch simple and juicy at for the moment, but it should round out and broaden with a few years of bottle aging. Try it with sea bass or halibut in lightly creamed or buttery sauces.

Here is a straightforward wine that features sweet cherries and berries and always evokes Pinot's friendlier side. It is consistently focused on well-defined fruit, and it is both smooth and supple without veering to softness. Age will not hurt it, but it is ready to go and should show particularly well with juicy pork roasts or a simple rack of lamb.

Well-ripened cherries are the main motif of this uncomplicated but nicely focused youngster, and, while never especially deep or thought- provoking, the wine gets it right when it comes to fruit. More rounded than firm, yet never slipping to softness, it calls for drinking comparatively soon while its fruity charms are at their height.

A nice, plummy wine with some real richness. Round, full-bodied and firm, with a coffee-earthy finish that sets off the fruit. Fairly tannic and very dry.

Rich and fruity, a textbook North Coast Cab. The flavors of black cherry, coffee, herbs and a smattering of smoky oak are well-balanced with firm tannins and good acidity.

Ripe, with vanilla tones framing melon, pineapple and pear flavors, with tart citrus and grass character on the finish. Drink now. 10,000 cases made.

Rich, ripe and massive Grenache, redolent of all sorts of dark fruits - plums, blueberries, blackberries - that cascade over the palate like a roaring waterfall. Still, there's enough texture and grace to make it possible to warm up to this thoroughbred, and the finish sails on forever. Best from 2006 through 2012.

Big, rich and juicy, brimming with blueberry, plum, blackberry and black pepper flavors that are so lively they seem to jump out of the glass. the finish lingers intensely, cloaked in ultra refined tannins. Drink now through 2012.

Ripe and distinctive for its gamy, spicy character, a fleshy Shiraz with fine tannins wrapped around the generous berry and licorice flavors at the core. Finishes long. Best from 2006 through 2010.

Peter Fraser makes this Yangarra Estate beauty for Kendall-Jackson, one of America's biggest wine companies, and we're lucky that the whole lot doesn't flood Stateside. It comes from one of the most prized old vineyards in the Vales, on a big sandhill that grows, among other things, some of the state's best grenache. This is polished, intense and almost sullen wine that deserves a year or two before you trouble it. It's no early-drinking bimbo, but a dead serious, full-bore, very accomplished and confident dry red.

Rich, showy and vibrant. Grassy, with notes of lemon, lime and anise. Medium-bodied and elegant. Light tannins.

Mid-sized fruit is decked out with the butter and oak of a much bigger wine here, and the sensations of size come through in the mouth. If always richer in feel than it is in pure fruit, the wine carries apples enough to seize the day, and its rounded, slightly soft-edged finish invites early drinking with the likes of grilled ahi or salmon.

Closed nose, hint of green pepper, sweet oak; very rich, sweetish fruit, fairly tannic, concentrated, tight.

recognizing wines that cost less than $20 as champions of value.

K-J's are the wines wine snobs love to hate because they are so hugely popular. You can't, after all, be a snob if you drink what everyone else is drinking. But Jess Jackson deserves a lot of credit. Most owners, having created what must be the best-selling brand in wine history, would have succumbed to the temptation to shave quality, bump up the price and pocket the cash. Jackson, though, has done the reverse, raising the quality of his flagship Vintner's Reserve line while holding the price. So kudos to him for making a fine-drinking California cab at a decent price.

The '01 Matanzas merlot is intense, to say the least. We love the sophisticated, toasted, smoky oak vanilla aromas streaked with pepper, chocolate and black plum jam. It is packed full of toasted oak, coffee, chocolate, plum jam and orange peel flavours. Smooth and polished, perhaps the best merlot yet from Matanzas Creek, drinkable but you could easily cellar for five or more years.

The old-vine designation will make more sense when you see how black and extracted the wine appears in the glass. Aromas are abyss-deep, with dust and black soil over dark fruit. The palate holds nothing but the purest blackberry, dressed up with some toast. Finishes with taut cherry. A solid, masculine wine.

A nice step up from the 2000 VR. Black peppery, earthy, licorice, cassis, leather and spicy nose. Round, supple, dry and rich with very spicy, black peppery, vanilla, meaty, cassis flavours and a black olive, licorice, black berry finish. Good texture and concentration. You can drink now or keep for two to three years.

Exceptionally popular, perhaps due to its supple, sweet fruit and generous vanilla component.

2003 Fume Blanc And here is a wonderfully scrubbed, lightly grassy, floral and very quietly oaky wine. It earns its spurs for energy, for its absolute purity of spirits and for its perfectly measured seasoning of grassy varietal character. Its priceworthiness is also to be noted.

2001 The Deuce Sauvignon Blanc - Alexander Valley This Sonoma County winery has won its fair share of accolades for serious Sauvignon, and this rich, intensely varietal bottling again hits the mark with its involving display of deep fruit, rich oak and weedy herbaceousness...fairly full-bodied and more fleshy in feel.