USA, California, Central Coast: The 2017 Vintage in Santa Barbara County The 2017 Chardonnay 3D has a wonderfully open nose of honey-drizzled hazelnut, sweet hay, warm peach and nectarine with white blossoms, a hint of chamomile, red apple skin and a strong line of crushed rock minerality. It's medium to full-bodied and juicy with tons of ripe, honeyed fruits that segue back to lime skin and crushed stone on the very long, energetic finish.

Tasting a Twelve-Year Vertical of the Napa Valley-Based Blend The Cardinale Rule Chalk and gravel, rose petal, ivy, dried leaves, and blueberries. This is a construction zone, but it’s all the nicest wood, with mineral-packed barrels. Reminds me of Conterno Monfortino with age.

Tasting a Twelve-Year Vertical of the Napa Valley-Based Blend The Cardinale Rule So Howell-driven. Sanguine. Red sous bois, just-ripe mountain berries, leather, meat, olive, blackberry, warm spices, fir, and pine. Cool, candy-coated, and so textured.

Tasting a Twelve-Year Vertical of the Napa Valley-Based Blend The Cardinale Rule Blackberry, dark boysenberry, black tea, and candied black olive. Vast width on the palate. Structurally intense with a touch of Brett.

The brand's telltale aromas of pure red fruit and earth recall a wild strawberry plucked from a field of minty sagebrush. Rounded red-currant, pine-needle and redwood-frond flavors power the fresh palate, which is delightful and delicious.

James Halliday On The 2020 Cabernet And Family Varietal Winners 50% destemmed, 50% retained as whole berry, the remainder crushed. While there is plenty of clove, cardamon and aniseed to Asian five-spice intrigue hidden behind the velour of plush cherry fruit, this is relatively forward in the context of the stable's wines. A lick of vanilla pod oak and a skein of peppery acidity wafts across the long tail.

The 2009 Napa Valley Cabernets at Age 10 Full medium ruby. Complex but brooding aromas of black cherry, blackberry, dark plum, licorice, bitter chocolate and minerals. At once sweet and tightly wound, with its black fruit and licorice flavors conveying terrific density and focus. This has the grain and balance of a top young Pomerol. Spreads out nicely on the very long, still-youthful finish, which features noble tannins and superb persistence. This remarkably structured Merlot possesses the stuffing and balance for a long and graceful evolution in bottle. In fact, I suspect it will continue to gain in breadth with more cellaring.

Impressively deep red/purple colour, with a meaty, smoky charcuterie-like overtone to the blueberry and violet aromas. It's elegant, medium to full-bodied, intense and finely-structured, with plenty of tannin and remarkable structure, perhaps partly thanks to the 7% petit verdot that has been blended in. The wine is intense but not big or weighty. A surprising wine.

Deep red colour with a good tint of purple. The bouquet shows both cabernet and shiraz with the former opening the batting. Masses of blackberry, cassis and violet aromas fill the bouquet, while the meatiness and spice of the shiraz are more apparent in the mouth at this stage. It's full-bodied but also elegant, with abundant tannin firming the middle and finish, the follow-through long and satisfying. (60/40 cabernet/shiraz, the highest cabernet content to date).

Wine of the Week AU This has to be one of the best value wines in Australia. Glorious, fragrant, dark fruit with an intricate, yet silky, tannin frame. The flavours are incredibly pure, poised and vibrant. It is a serious wine, yet incredibly drinkable in its youth. Outstanding value. Drink now or age for further complexity.

Greg Brewer's hallmark on these wines are a purity of fruit, which, in this case, arises as strawberry sorbet on the nose, with hints of thyme and tarragon. That red-fruit focus spreads into the palate, where hints of cherry tomatoes and pepper dust lead into complex herbs and spearmint toward the finish.

Buoyant aromas of Bing cherry and raspberry sorbet are layered with lavender and rose buds on the elegant, approachable nose of this single-vineyard bottling. The palate is crisp in an underripe cherry flavor, with a taut texture and accents of mace and star anise on the finish.

Oregon 2019: 451 Tasting Notes and Scores A very poised pinot with fresh, wild cherries and abundant fresh, forest leaves, wood and herbs, all deeply woven together. The palate delivers a succulent, juicy impression with an elegant, long and unwavering shape. Excellent pinot. Drink or hold.

This tremendously impressive red wine is blended with small amounts of Petit Verdot and Tannat and given 20 months in French oak, a good majority of it new. Reductive at first, it expands to show root beer, cedar and dried herb in a classically structured and hugely concentrated frame of big tannin and weight. Enjoy 2026–2031.

Tasting the Traumatic 2017 Vintage (And Others) in Northern California Wonderful aromas of ripe raspberries and blueberries with violets and orange blossom. Medium to full body. Very fine tannins, which are compressed and fresh. Stones and minerals underneath. Cool and bright at the finish. Delicious already. Drink or hold.

USA, California: More Napa & Sonoma New Releases Pale to medium ruby-purple in color, the 2017 Pinot Noir Seascape Vineyard gives up pronounced notes of warm cranberries, Bing cherries and raspberry coulis with hints of lilacs, underbrush and fungi. Medium-bodied, the palate is charged with red berries and earthy sparks, framed by silken-textured tannins and bold freshness, finishing long and mineral laced.

USA, California: More Napa & Sonoma New Releases Medium ruby-purple colored, the 2017 Pinot Noir Jennifer’s comes charging out of the gate with bold raspberry coulis, kirsch and warm redcurrant scents plus nuances of wild sage, damp soil, fallen leaves and spice box. Full-bodied, the palate is jam-packed with red berry preserves and earthy layers, framed by firm, fine-grained tannins, finishing long and perfumed.

USA, California: More Napa & Sonoma New Releases Medium ruby-purple colored, the 2017 Pinot Noir Far Coast Vineyard is a little mute at first sniff, with the nose slowly unfurling to reveal beautifully perfumed notes of lilacs, Ceylon tea and bouquet garni over a core of Bing cherries, raspberry leaves and cranberries. Medium-bodied, the palate is fine-boned, refreshing and elegantly played with exquisitely ripe tannins and layers of red, black and blue fruits, finishing long and fragrant.

USA, California: More Napa & Sonoma New Releases Medium to deep garnet-purple in color, the 2017 Zinfandel Highwire Vineyard explodes with black cherry compote, blueberry pie, raspberry preserves and fruitcake notes with hints of tobacco, sandalwood and potpourri. Full-bodied, the palate is completely coated with blackberry preserves and spicy layers, framed by soft tannins and lovely freshness, finishing very long and layered.

Napa Valley's 2017s Lastly, the 2017 Cabernet Franc comes from three separate parcels and is 100% Cabernet Franc aged in 92% new French oak. It’s an awesome bottle of wine with classic Franc black tea and forest floor notes as well as perfumed black raspberry fruits, lots of floral and bay leaf hints, medium to full body, fine tannins, and a terrific sense of elegance. It’s a classy wine to enjoy any time over the coming 15-20 years.

Napa Valley's 2017s One of the flagship releases from this estate, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Bosche comes from a single vineyard (it's one of the earliest single vineyard releases from Napa) in Rutherford and is close to 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Merlot aged in 67% new French oak for 28 months. Its opaque purple color is followed by a stunning bouquet of red and black currants, crushed violets, dark chocolate, graphite, truffle, and hot gravel-like minerality. Showing the elegance and purity that's the hallmark of the vintage, it’s medium to full-bodied, with beautiful tannins and a seamless, elegant texture.

Aromatic, detailed, generous and plush, featuring notes of cream soda and milk chocolate that add a touch of polish to the concentrated kirsch, spiced plum and blueberry flavors at the core. The details of cigar box, espresso and palo santo show appealing precision, exhibiting harmony on the long, expressive finish. Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. Drink now through 2035.

Even better than their entry level bottling, the 2016 Brewer-Clifton ‘Machado’ Pinot Noir is a spell-binding new wine from this storied state in the Santa Rita Hills. The ‘Machado Vineyard’ is a 15 acre site that is adjacent to Clos Pepe and immediately behind the Kessler-Haak Vineyard. Planted to Pommard, Merry Edwards, Mount Eden, and 459 clones, the Pinot Noir opens with peat moss and wild blackberry tones that connect with the seaweed and citrus rind aromatics that are all woven together brilliantly in the glass. The palate is lithe, elegant and marvelously textured. Red and dark fruit flavors collide with copious minerals and damp earth undertones, with a beam of salinity that sings through the mid-palate. A complete wine, the 2016 ‘Machado’ will provide an exceedingly long life in the cellar. Drink 2020-2040.

2017 & 2018 Napa Valley In Depth The 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon (Mt. Veeder) is another huge, tannic wine from Mt. Brave. Inky dark fruit, blackberry jam, bittersweet chocolate, spice and new leather are all kicked up a few notches in this dramatic, unctuous wine. Huge tannins wrap around all of the fruit in a big, potent Cabernet endowed with tremendous personality and class. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that the 2017 needs a number of years to be at its very best.