Open spicy, floral, clove, apple and pear nose with ripe melon, vanilla, lees and butter well integrated. Very rich and viscous with a touch of oiliness. Big melon, mango, clove, lees, spice flavours and a long baked-apple, butterscotch finish. Very refined and long, top quality here.

Open and complex nose with intense blackberry, cassis jam, tobacco, barnyard, eucalyptus aromas. The wine has a rich mid-palate with intense vanilla, smoky, blackberry, tobacco, and earth flavours and some ripe but noticeable tannin. Long, intense and balanced.

Buckeye cab is mountain-grown, and aged in 82 percent French oak. The nose is sensational. Ripe blackberry, waxy, minty, peppery licorice aromas and some barnyard, blueberry, violet tones. Very rich and round with ripe, soft, chewy tannins. A big, intense hillside cabernet with great character. Very fine value.

Open nose with lanolin, honey, mineral, creamy lees, citrus and floral aromas. Rich and round with good acidity. Long pineapple, honey and apple finish. A touch hot, like the 98 but a bit more elegant and with better acidity balance, although less ripe tropical fruit characters.

Put aside any preconceptions you may have about the Kendall-Jackson style, the wine that struck gold with a touch of residual sweetness, and taste this new release made by Randy Ullom. You'll recognize the Jackson touch in the wine's size and ripeness: It's big and full, with sweet peach scents. But it doesn't finish sweet, and it goes far beyond anything you might have tasted before from this producer: This is a complex, winey chardonnay, built on a robust layering of flavors that last in a gentle, unhurried way. In fact, you could sip and study it over the course of hours, trying to unravel the layers of smoked meat, apple mash and applewood smoke, pear and dry peach. The promise of ripeness is there in the initial aroma and carries through...

Open black cherry, spicy, cola, earth and pepper aromas with a touch of barnyard and strawberry jam in the background. Round and moderately rich with supple mouth feel. Finish is soft and balanced with earth and strawberry. Very good quality for current and near-term consumption.

A blend of six different vineyards and multiple clones, and unfined and unfiltered. Very nice buttery, citrus, floral, nutty aromas with peach, melon and spice. Richer and rounder on the palate with and a nice melon, creamy finish. Elegant and long with good acidity balance. Good value.

Unfiltered Chardonnays always give us pause because their hazy appearances can often be accompanied by an array of unusual and unwanted characteristics. Not so here, however. This wine is clean and fruity throughout with sweet, gala apple notes and creme brulee notes of oak showing the way. A similar sense of focus is integral to the wine's medium-intensity flavors, and while this version of Chardonnay is not the most dramatic to be found, it is, nevertheless, a wine that is sure to be enjoyed with a wide variety of foods.

It takes some time for the completely dry pineapple flavors of this wine to develop, but as it takes on air, they go beyond the pleasantly musty scent of old books to develop fresher green tones and layers of flavor. There's an intensity to the gripping, mouthwatering acidities...

Separate lots of Sonoma fruit with some Santa Barbara, and aged in French oak. Layers of tropical fruit, pear, apple and citrus aromas complemented by well-integrated vanilla, spice, clove and smoke notes. We like the wood restraint and its bright spicy apple, toasty lees, honey and citrus butter flavours. Better than a simple California appellation indicates.

Made from old vines yielding about 1.5 tons per acre. Ripe blackberry, white pepper, earth and licorice aromas with a touch of roasted bell pepper and raspberry. Round and soft with a touch of acidity and hotness. An elegant style that is less jammy than other areas of Sonoma and ready to drink.

Spicy, blackberry jam, floral, earthy roasted pepper aromas, very nice varietal tones. Round and soft with very forward tannins, has good blackberry jam, spicy, licorice, rootsy flavours. Good balance and will improve with a year in bottle.

Look for spicy, peppery, blackberry aromas with some resin and barnyard and a touch of wax. Round and rich with soft tannins. Long, stylish red, good value. Ready to drink, although it will keep easily through 2003. Fine value.

The VR Chardonnay is mostly barrel fermented and aged for seven months in small oak - half French/half American. Look for leesy, mineral, melon aromas and toasted lees, vanilla, butter citrus and apple flavours. Delicious Monterey and Santa Barbara fruit that is well integrated with oak.

Honeyed scents of caramel and white Rainier cherries lead into this soft, leesy riesling. It's not about structure, just about pleasing sweetness for dessert.

A week earlier, I had stopped at La Crema Winery...and I saw one of the most exciting products on the shelf for value...One of the wines, a 1999 vintage wine called Nine Barrels, costs $75 a bottle, and it's one of the best new pinots I have yet tasted.

But by far, the most exciting thing for everyday consumers is La Crema's new 2000 pinot noir. All things equal, the taste of barrel samples may be an insider's cherished dream, but one sip of the final product tells you that the art of the winemaker is still one of mystery and magic. My wine of the week this week tells the tale. About as complete a wine as you will find for the money, this handsome wine offers strawberry, cherry and clove aromas and a succulence rarely found in a red wine. Not to be missed.

...more distinctive with herbal, strawberry and raspberry tones...they are fascinating in that even though they are above 14 percent alcohol, they are lighter in color than many of the other French clone pinot noirs, and yet more deeply flavored.

...is more herbal and complex, but slightly less succulent...they are fascinating in that even though they are above 14 percent alcohol, they are lighter in color than many of the other French clone pinot noirs, and yet more deeply flavored.

...has violet aromas and delicate cherry and mint aromas and a deep flavor...they are fascinating in that even though they are above 14 percent alcohol, they are lighter in color than many of the other French clone pinot noirs, and yet more deeply flavored.

...one of the finest pinot values on the shelf. The aroma here is pure pinot, with faint herbal and spinach notes amid bright cherry, strawberry and cranberry fruit. The taste is lush and rich, with a faint note of smoke and chocolate from barrel aging. A wine that will improve for at least two years, but simply tastes great now.

While hardly one to impress with complexity or any sense of depth, this direct, vaguely juicy, slightly sweet wine is the very picture of picnic quaffability. And at discount, it fills the bill for warm weather gulping.

Top of the category...

...is surprisingly soft, round, and forward for a Petite Syrah. The wine has plenty of character, an opaque ruby/purple color, and good peppery, blackberry and licorice notes.

Another opulently-textured wine is the 1999 Syrah Eaglepoint Vineyard. This 100% Syrah aged in both French and American oak, exhibits blackberry liqueur aspects along with smoke, creosote, and pepper. It is a full-bodied, luscious Syrah to drink during its first decade of life.