The 2021 Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands was matured for 10 months in 25% new French oak. It has pure aromas of red cherry, cranberry, pipe tobacco, orange peel and potpourri. The mediumbodied palate features powerful, perfumed flavors.
It has a grainy texture, focused acidity and a long finish layered with spice and earth nuances. 1,530 cases produced.

Biggest of these in power, breadth & structure, but perfectly proportioned to avoid heaviness. Oak (50% new) also important part of whole. Full expression of usual dried orange peel, lees-enriched complexity yet to emerge but 2019 driven by intensity to resounding length. A grand future beckons.

Rich, polished and immediately likable, this vintage of Brook’s Road is beautifully perfumed with succulent blueberries, thyme, florals and savory spice. The supple, silky primary fruit leads on the palate, but is structured within a frame of fine-grained tannins. Still a baby, this should evolve beautifully over the next several decades. Majestic Imports. Cellar Selection. —C.P.

Take a deep dive into the jammy, ripe depths of Zinfandel as you sniff the ultraripe blackberries and sip the plump red raspberries in this full-bodied, mouthcoating wine. Moderate tannins, intense fruit flavor and a broad but vibrant texture make it memorable. Editors’ Choice. —J.G.

The brilliant 2021 Stonestreet ‘Broken Rock Vineyard’ Chardonnay comes from this high altitude site in the Alexander Valley. Beautifully textured and rich, this offers bright underlying finesse with ripe pineapple and mango fruit flavors alongside flinty accents on the palate. This is a joy to consume right now and over the next eight plus years. Drink 2023-2031.

100% Cabernet Sauvignon from three different blocks, a combination of 2002 and 1971 plantings. Destemmed and 60% new oak for 15 months. Tightly woven, savoury and an intriguing ferrous quality on the nose. Not what one would initially expect from Cabernet, but the glass immediately draws you in for more. Yes, there are the classic notes of red plum, blackcurrant, bay leaf, black olive and a hint of Dutch liquorish, an ever so slight medicinal menthol note and toasty oak woven throughout. This works so well – Cabernet that walks the stylistic tightrope of modern and old school. There’s a lifted minerality to this wine, and it’s both refreshing and heady at the same time. Sinewy long limbed tannins and an acid line that provides finesse and verve on a muscular frame. This is a tightly knitted, yet supple wine. It’s still a baby, decant if you must drink now or watch it blossom with time. A joy.

There are hay and cedarwood characters here, which help give the flavour profile some spread, but essentially the fruit here has soaked up its oak in the best of ways. This is an impressive 10-year-old wine. It tastes of fresh boysenberry, blackcurrant, decayed leaves, blonde tobacco and an array of secondary characters, leather and tangerine, earth and game. What’s really noticeable about this wine is the way it opens up in the glass; it starts off well, but it really blossoms as it breathes in the most wondrous of ways. It’s a gem of a wine, without question.

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.