The 2021 Chardonnay Viñedo Maricerro from Itata was aged for 10 months in French barrels. Green with a yellowish sheen in the glass. The green apple-dominated nose presents hints of acacia and ginger over a layer of oak. Creamy and oily with tart acidity in the mouth, the vibrant, fatty palate ends with a long, fruity finish.

Aromas of currants and bark as well as redwood and spearmint. Ink and iron. Medium to full body, chewy tannins with orange peel and hints of wood. This will come together nicely with bottle age. Dusty tannins. A blend of 94% cabernet sauvignon and 6% merlot. Better after 2026.

A big wine with layered tannins that give a soft cashmere texture, setting up the wine nicely with dark berries, chocolate, bark and fresh leaves. Full-bodied, chewy and flavorful with some sea shells and spices at the end. Tight. A blend of 54% merlot, 13% cabernet sauvignon, 13% cabernet franc, 13% petit verdot and 7% malbec. 377 cases produced. Best after 2026.

This is a chiseled, pure Cabernet, with boysenberry and mulberry fruit racing through, carried by a bright iron note and infused liberally with sweet bay leaf, chaparral, red tea and floral notes. The serious structure has yet to fully meld with the fruit, but it's getting there. Needs a bit more cellaring to stretch out fully. Blind 2013 California Cabernet retrospective (February 2023). Best from 2025 through 2038. 400 cases made.

Graphite, lead, asphalt, iron pot, hints of bark and pine needle. Medium to full body, with round and juicy tannins. Savory. Tight at the end. Lightly chewy. Very pretty. Better after 2027.

Enticing aromas of strawberry, spice and florals billow from the glass. The palate is medium to full bodied, by Grenache standards, with oodles of plump, juicy fruit girdled by spicy, fine tannins and lovely acidity. The cool 2021 vintage has ramped up the aromatics here (and the acidity), and it’s drinking beautifully now but will age gracefully for at least eight to 10 years. Sovereign Wine Imports. —C.P.

The original of Giant Step’s single-vineyard wines, this vintage of Tarraford strikes a lovely, lucid balance of oyster shell and briny goodness, with toasted cashew, vibrant, ginger-flecked melon and preserved lemon. The palate is both linear and focused but also mouthfilling, with salty, crystalline acidity and just the right amount of oak and lees influence to lend power, texture and complexity without wrestling out the fruit. A harmonious, classy drop, this is drinking well now but is capable of another seven to eight years in bottle. Jackson Family Wines. —C.P.

A wonderfully savoury and nearly feral Cabernet from a proper mountain Cabernet vineyard site at the rugged Rockfall vineyard high up in Mayacamas. Mediterranean scrub, eucalyptus and lavender leap forth with a kick of white pepper spice. The palate offers a core of dusty blue and black fruits, California bay leaf, anise and freshly crushed stone minerality to finish the wine with a savoury edge.

This wine shows the wonderful complexity and ageability of the Vérité house in the inaugural bottling of La Joie. Without a doubt, this wine has improved over its years. Anise, violet and rose petal aromatics hint at the elegance of the wine. Concentrated red and black berries are met with a beautiful savouriness.

Wildly floral, this Merlot-based blend from 10 years ago still aromatically puts on quite the fireworks. Far from fatigued, this wine feels like it's just getting warmed up. Dried violets and cherry kirsch notes balance ripe aromas with mineral graphite tones. The palate shows balsamic and strawberries, fennel, leather and mint. The wine remains exceptionally structured a decade later.

Less a homage to the Lucy Lawless television series and more a clever turn of phrase and nod to the Zena Crown Vineyard, this wine is pure Oregon terroir in character. Elegance balanced with robust blue fruits, this wine shows aromas of pine bough, brambleberries and a savoury herbal melange. The palate shows clove star anise, smashed raspberries and fresh mint. It is balanced and brilliant.

A Merlot dominant blend with whispers of Cabernet Franc and Malbec (5% each). More generous than dense with ample structure, silken texture and elegance alongside understated power. Aromatics are marked by espresso beans, irises, violets, and crushed stone alongside cedar plank and cinnamon spice. The palate is elegantly outlined, with fine tannins, mocha powder, blue fruits denoted by huckleberry and fig and a sinuous streak of graphite across the finish.

Graham Weerts uses grapes from Capensis' home base in Stellenbosch to produce this superb Chardonnay from a pair of blocks on the property. Combining two different clones - CY95 and 110R - from decomposed granite and sandstone soils, it's a pithy, focused, chiselled white with understated power, a nice interplay between fennel, vanilla and lemon zest flavours and a spicy finish. 2024-30

The 2019 Chardonnay Estate, matured for 10 months in 33% new oak, is beautiful straight from the bottle. It's scented of baked apples, allspice, chamomile and meringue plus top notes of flint and lemon. The medium-bodied palate has an alluring balance of textural grip and freshness that drives its concentrated, savory flavors, and it has a very long, gently honeyed finish. 1,738 cases were made.

Matured entirely in new oak for 10 months, the 2019 Chardonnay Gravel Bench Vineyard opens with youthful cedar and matchstick that gives way to deeper tones of apricot, chamomile and honey. The medium-bodied palate balances expansive, highly concentrated fruit with lively acidity, and it has a long, gently textural finish. 303 cases were made.

From 800 million year old soapstone, sandstone, clay soils in Australia's premier Grenache region, McLaren Vale, Hickinbotham is set for the long haul while still being approachable now. It's reticent when first poured, so give it some aeration. Once open, there's oodles of ripe, fresh strawberry fruit, and something a touch medicinal. Behind that lurk cherry cordial, orange rind, floral and spice notes. The palate is bright and fruity, with an almost surprising tug of raw, textural tannins. A distinctive cherry tang lingers on the long finish. Graceful and silky but with power and age-worthiness.

The 2021 Pinot Noir Julia's Signature Collection is dense, powerful and explosive, with a gorgeous feeling of inner sweetness that emerges over time The Julia's was fermented in barrel, so there is a touch of oak sheen here, but it all works. A rush of red/purplish fruit, rose petal, mint, blood orange and lavender all race across the palate. This wonderfully complex Pinot is a jewel.

The 2021 Chardonnay West Point is a classic Santa Maria Chardonnay aged in barrel. Tropical fruit, spice, mint, tangerine oil and a kiss of French oak all build effortlessly in the glass. The 2021 is a real stunner.

The 2021 Chardonnay Katherine's Vineyard Signature Collection is bright and super-focused. Citrus peel, mint, white flowers and tangerine peel all grace this exquisite, intense wine. The 2021 was fermented in tank and aged in barrel, of which 50% new. The Katherine's Vineyard comes from own-rooted vines planted in the 1970s. Readers should plan on giving this a bit of time, as it is quite nervous today.

The 2021 Chardonnay3D is a powerful, phenolic wine, tempered by the cool nature of the year. Citrus peel, white flowers, herbs, mint and crushed rocks abound. More than anything else, the 3D impresses with its textural resonance and palate presence. Superb.

Every cherry is singing at the top of its lungs in this super delicious, full-of-energy Pinot from Zena Crown. And the waves of very pure, rich fruit flavors keep coming: cool raspberries, pomegranates, blackberries, and plums—all laced with grenadine. Languorously supple texture. Vivid and long.

The 2020 Ironheart Shiraz hails from a warm, dry
vintage in McLaren Vale, and the wines, I feel, have
been made with care and detail. They're very good, and
while the season is still captured in the glass, there's
no hint of the heat or the year. This might be due to the
resilience of the organic/biodynamic vineyard.
Anyway, here the wine is monumental, big, supple and
driven by skin tannin, but it's a bit meaty and dense
too. There are muscles here, but it's not heavy, you
know? It's really engaging and lively, while nailing the
McLaren Vale Shiraz brief of exotic spice, dark fruit
and fine tannin. This is a pleasure. It matured for only
12 months in one year old French foudre and then
spentA further trip around the sun in glass prior to
release. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

The 2021 King's Wood Shiraz is super good, with
concentrated, black cherries, rose petals, wet asphalt
(must be the rainy day today), black pepper, mulberry,
star anise, raspberries and more, more, more. It has a
lot packed in but is not crowded. There's a good
feeling here. It is effortless, impactful and pleasurable.
It's all "come hither," this wine. It was made with 20%
whole bunches, with a wild ferment, all free run and
matured in 25-hectoliter French foudre, 50% new, for
16 months. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

Hand picked and fermented in open-tops replete with 30% whole berries, albeit, no bunches; 21 days on skins. Blackcurrant, raspberry, mint, anise and lilac. No aggressive punch downs or pump overs. This is a refined wine boasting a meander of sinewy tannins, like a songline across the palate. It doesn't play any cards not dealt, the inherent freshness derived from organic principles and impeccable fruit quality, glimpsing a southern Rhône-style, despite the variety.

Hand picked and wild fermented. The norm here. Long, gentle extraction in amphorae, with 69% on skins for 198 days, gleaning long-limbed tannic nourishment and the sense of pixelated freshness that marks so many of the grenache wines. While the buzz is around Blewitt Springs, Clarendon expresses a more ferrous and firm iteration. Pithy. Nobly bitter, if not a little unresolved at the finish. Cherry cola, licorice root, dried thyme, bergamot, raspberry and persimmon. Latent but very fine. Your patience will be appreciated.