Kendall-Jackson, founded 22 years ago, is renowned for its widely distributed Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay...(K-J) has made radical changes in how they make their wines, and that commitment is now showing up in their new releases…The latest version of this $12 (Vintner’s Reserve) Chardonnay 2002 is surprisingly better structured and more flavorful than any past version, and Ullom has developed a system to make the wine more consistent than in the past.

dry, medium-bodied, light oak, medium acidity. Always reliable for its ripe fruit flavors, K-J's Vintner's Reserve has gotten positively zingy in the 2002 vintage.

Curse the common quality of this wine, but it's more than luck that makes the Vintner's Reserve the second-most popular restaurant chardonnay and the top-selling chardonnay in stores. You get a lot of flavor for your money and a touch of sweetness that so many consumers love. Forward fruit flavors include peaches and tropical fruit. It's quite a mouthful.

Celebrating 20 years as one of California's most popular chardonnay producers, this is a blend sourced from six different coastal appellations, barrel fermented and aged seven months in French oak. It's a typically soft, easy yet complex and very tasty K-J chardonnay, with generous butterscotch, spice and pineapple-banana fruit. Warm, creamy and sweetish on the finish, with very good to excellent length.

Youthful aromas of fresh pears and Gala Apples sit beneath a mild veneer of creamy oak in its attractive aromas, yet, once in the mouth, the wine is very simple, never so well defined in fruit and slightly sugary in character with crisp, slightly citric acidity stiffening its finish.

This chardonnay, celebrating K-J's 20th anniversary, is a wonderfully rich wine with tropical fruit and pear flavors. Lush mouthfeel and good depth of character.

This is the wine that started Jess Jackson's wine empire. It's hard to believe it has been around for 20 years. We remember this wine clobbering a nice batch of expensive white burgundies in a blind tasting 18 years ago. It's still fun to drink with its tropical fruit flavors and hint of citrus and toasty oak. We're sure to see this in another 20 years.

Made entirely from a single block on the Santa Maria Bench, K-J's Chardonnay is big and rich on the nose with peach, mango, honey, creamy spicy lees fruit. Wow.

Sweet themes of juicy apples play the lead to entirely supportive oak first in the nose and then again in the flavors of this up-front offering, and, while acidity firms up things by mid-palate, it does so without taking away from the wine's generally juicy nature.

Made from grapes from Santa Barbara, Monterey and Sonoma County, this is a full-throttle California Chardonnay. We prefer this wine as a stand alone since its big tropical fruit and elegant oak aging make this a wine to ponder and savor. A full symphony all by itself.

Round and rich, with tangy orange/pineapple fruit and a hint of sweetness.

KJ's least expensive Chardonnay is a straightforward look at the varietal and features both sweet apple- and pear-like qualities with minimal intrusion from oak. It shows an edge of sugar to its soft and easy flavors, but its ultimate use is as a simple, light quaff or mealtime mate.

Made from coastal grapes, this chardonnay has all the bells and whistles: barrel fermentation, whole-cluster pressing and malolactic fermentation. Forward tropical fruit flavors, butterscotch oak and butter aromas. Maybe there's too much going on here, but it doesn't lack flavor.

Orange blossom character atop sweet vanilla, toast, lime, baking spice and baked apples; flavors of mango, banana, pear and tropical fruit; round and full with decent acidity on the finish that shows some citrus and more toasty oak.

Rich and ripe. Peach, pear and citrus fruit aromas carry through in the flavors. A hint of spice. Nice, lingering finish.

Vanilla aromas, sweet golden-apple flavors, rich, fat, sweet.

Rich and buttery - a big wine with sweetness on entry. Clean, bright aromas and flavors of vanilla, orange zest, papaya, fresh pineapple with toast and toffee. Nice balance of oak and malolactic characteristics.

Fresh mildly blossomy, slightly pineappley fruit emerges nicely with balanced oak and hints of sweet butter in the immediate aromas of this juicy youngster, and its open flavors run parallel in their bias to tropical fruit.

A consistently popular wine full of apple and pear fruitiness complemented by well-balanced, spicy oak flavors and a barely perceptible, but appealing, touch of sweetness.

Rich, intense aromas and flavors of black raspberries; sweet and smooth; excellent balance; long, deeply fruity finish.

Top of the category...

Peach, green apple, and melon flavours with butterscotch and toasty oak.

Although its overtly leesy nose is almost singularly keyed on nutty, burnt bread elements, this offering comes through with a generous dose of sweet pear-like fruit on the palate and its open flavors find a creamy streak of oak instead of the expected repeat of toast and char. Nicely rounded and a touch oily in feel, it finishes with a lingering mix of apples, pears and oak and should do fine service as a juicy partner to grilled chicken dishes.

Serious Grenache Dried cherry fruit and savoury oak. Composed and complex.

Truly great old-vine Grenache for Pinot Noir lovers Another Jackson Family Wines-owned property which they're probably just waiting for the world to appreciate. This wine is actually overseen by winemaker Christopher Carpenter, whose main job is making some of Jackson Family's highest-end California Cabernets (Cardinale, Lokoya.) To be honest, that doesn't sound like the right resume for making a great old-vine Grenache, and the winery web page boasts Wine Advocate scores for all the wines on it -- and this wine isn't on it. I'm not sure what's up with that; I hope they're not planting on grafting these vines (also right near the Yangarra and Smart vineyards) over to Cabernet so they can more effectively extract dense 97-point flavors. Grab the wine while you still can. It's light-bodied, with red currants and berries and some surprising tannin on the finish that means you might want to hold onto it for a bit.