Well-balanced, with delicate dried cherry, anise and herb flavors that are concentrated and complex, finishing with a chocolate and light oak aftertaste. Drink now through 2006.

A real mouthful, with rich, plush, chocolaty plum and blackberry fruit that's complex and concentrated, picking up herb, mocha, black cherry nuances. Shows a trace of heat on the finish, but also a gush of rich fruit flavors.

Dark, rich, ripe and complex, with plum, black cherry, wild berry and roasted coffee flavors. Plenty of heat on the finish.

Lots of toasty, smoky, creamy oak around fig, apricot and baked apple pie flavors, giving the wine extra dimensions.

Complex, concentrated and well-structured, with a mix of ripe cherry, raspberry and blackberry. Firm, supple tannins and excellent length. Has more backbone and depth than most from this vintage. Drink now through 2007.

Intense and concentrated, with rich, lively layers of spice, black cherry, blackberry and creamy, toasty oak. Shows a firmness from tannins on the finish. Drink now through 2006.

Aims for complexity, with toasty oak wrapped around a core of delicate plum and black cherry. Finish shows oak having a slight upper hand. Drink now through 2005.

A spicy, minty style, with a tasty core of plum and currant-laced fruit. A nice dash of oak and firm tannins.

...medium-bodied and nicely balanced, with nuances of peach and pear and a crisp, long finish, a good any-occasion chardonnay.

Le nez est épicé, avec de la réglisse, du fruit noir. La bouche a du volume, une bonne concentration et des tannins arrondis … Finit poivré sur des notes fumées. (Spicy aromas with licorice & black berry notes. The mouth shows great volume and concentration with soft round tannins. Spice and smoke on the finish.)

...full-bodied, thick and toasty, with classic syrah hints of dark fruits and licorice.

KJ's high-volume Merlot is a soft and easy-going offering that brings together elements of cherries, tea and a bit of oak, yet it is always limited in depth and real varietal expression. Medium-bodied and a bit wanting in energy, it is one for unceremonious drinking in the near future.

Possessed of well-ripened black cherry fruit in the nose, the wine simply does not avoid the green, herbal potential of the variety and winds up a bit at odds with itself both here and in its ripe, herb-tinged yet somewhat abbreviated flavors. Heat and gripping tannins rise at the end.

Full-bodied with a velvety core of black fruits and cocoa, supple tannins and a modest prick of acid on the finish. Approachable now, it could probably cellar nicely for 10 years.

This full-bodied red offers up a dollop of ripe plum and raspberry and ample black-pepper spice.

Deep flavors of baked apples and ripe pears.

This baby has aromas of just-picked ripe plums, boysenberries, and a peppery-chocolatey note that shows up on the palate. It's dry, clean and sharp, and it's a lot of fun.

Awesome, boasts a saturated purple color as well as aromas of blackberry liqueur, cogar tobacco, chololate, licorice, minerals, and cocoa. The knock-out aromatics are followed by a compellingly concentrated, layered wine of exceptional harmony, purity, and richness. Purchasers are in for a religious drinking experience, send in the angels! Anticipated maturity: 2006-2025.

Its saturated purple color is accompanied by an extraordinary perfume of smoke, roasted meats, blackberry and crème de cassis liqueur, super richness, a viscous texture, and amazing length (the finish lasts nearly a minute). Pure, sweet, and bull-bodied, this blockbuster will be at its finest between 2006-2025.

Exhibits sumptous aromas of sweet saddle leather, cigar smoke, chocolatey black currants, and blackberries. Sweet, rich, full-bodied, complex, and tasting like a Bordeaux on steroids, this is an enormously endowed, classic, distinctive cuvee that must be tasted to be believed. It represents a synthesis between France's Medoc and Northern California's ripe fruit. Anticipated maturity: 2005-2022.

Opaque inky/purple color looks more like Petite Sirah than Zinfandel. Theses 95-year old vines produce 250 cases of a 15.8 % alcohol wine with gorgeously pure blackberry and raspberry fruit intermixed with graphite, pepper and earth. Full bodied, with great purity and a liquid minerality underlying all the fruit, this is prodigious stuff. Consume it over the next 5-6 years. Kudos to winemaker Mike Sullivan and proprietor Don Hartford.

The Hartford Zinfandel Hartford (Court) Vineyard (270 cases; 16.5 % alcohol) comes from 90 year old vines. One of the candidates for the Zinfandel of the vintage, it possesses aromas and flavors of cherry liqueur, blackberries, pepper, melted licorice, and tar as well as an opulent, voluptuous, full bodied, strikingly concentrated, pure style. Drink this offering over the next 5-6 years.