Incredibly rich and opulent. Sumptuous aromas of ripe cassis, boysenberry, blackberry and mountain herbs. The incredibly vivid dark berry fruit – deep and penetrating – is accompanied by a tapestry of granular mountain tannins that are long and laced with a saline minerality. The finish reveals a plethora of pie spices, blueberry compote, chocolate and very fine oak. A powerhouse Cabernet that is pleasure-packed.

The 2019 Le Desir is based on Cabernet Franc, with the remainder 8% Merlot, 5% Malbec, and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon. It is complex and layered, with hints of saddle leather, pencil shavings, tangy red cherry, and blackcurrant. The palate is full and elegantly structured, with mocha, red plum, and turned soil. This is an incredible wine with lots of underlying tension that will be a pleasure to revisit if afforded the opportunity. Drink over the next 20 or more years.

The 2019 La Muse offers a luxurious and layered perfume of red apple, sweet tobacco, and fresh leather. The palate is generous, with velveteen texture, noes of cassis, violets, and fresh earth, and a weightless feel. The most open of the three presented by Verite, this is an incredible wine and will be fantastic to check in on over the next two or more decades.

Coming from the Sebastopol Hills, the 2019 Chardonnay Jennifer's was aged for 13 months in 30% new French oak. Displaying aromas of fresh green apple and wet stone, the palate is concentrated and powerful, with a persistent long finish, and the feeling like a rod of energy in its mouthfeel. Drink 2024-2034.

The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Helena Dakota is compact with menthol oils, sage, dark iron-rich earth, and cassis. The palate is savory, with tightly wound structure, and delivers dried herbs, fresh fig, violets, and scorched earth. Allow for a few years in cellar and drink 2025-2045.

Blended with 7% Merlot from the famous site, along the benchlands of the Mayacamas, this is a juicy, delicious and sophisticated wine, with impressive, complementary bolts of freshness and intensity that are fully in sync. Notes of gravel, black cherry, currant and herb ride along a structured and generous palate of memorable greatness. Enjoy best from 2028–2038.

The fruit for this 2019 High Sands Grenache is sourced from the highest plot on the estate, from old bush vines planted in 1946. This an incredibly complex wine that undulates and ripples across the tongue; it brings blood and ferrous, crushed quartz and pink peppercorns, poise and succulence, but never, ever heaviness. Weight: no. This has silken sway and lithe flow, but no heaviness. What an amazing wine that lingers and echoes through the finish. An emphatic, resounding, YES. In fact, I was almost done with this tasting note, and it occurred to me that there is also framboise, licorice, a hint of anise, salami and graphite through the finish. It's a crime to spit this out—so I won't.

A blend of 81% Merlot and 19% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2019 W S Keyes Merlot is deep garnet-purple in color. It comes bounding out with exuberant notes of baked plums, blackberry preserves, and boysenberries plus hints of licorice, underbrush, and Sichuan pepper. Full-bodied, the palate is both rich and energetic, featuring super-plush, rounded tannins and fantastic freshness, delivering a very long, earth-laced finish. It should age well. 509 cases were made. The soils that these old vines are planted on run counter to everything you've learned about where Merlot should succeed. Here there is volcanic, tufa soil as opposed to the typical clay. It is fascinating how a microclimate can change the parameters.

The 2018 Le Desir is composed of 82% Cabernet Franc, 12% Merlot, and 6% Malbec, aged for 16 months in 100% new French oak. Deep garnet-purple in color, it sashays out with provocative scents of redcurrant preserves, kirsch, black raspberries, and dusty soil, followed by hints of tobacco, Sichuan pepper, and rosehip tea. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is very tightly wound, with loads of red and black fruit layers intertwined with minerals and savory nuances, framed by very firm, grainy tannins, leading to a long and earthy finish for this beautiful wine. 2,500 cases were made.

The 2004 Le Desir, made from 49% Merlot, 47% Cabernet Franc, and 4% Cabernet Sauvignon, is very deep garnet-brick colored. Notes of blueberry pie, preserved plums, and Morello cherries come barreling out of the glass, followed by nuances of beef dripping, unsmoked cigars, pencil shavings, and black olives. The palate is full-bodied and lively, with vibrant blue and red fruit layers and a very plush texture, finishing long with a skip in its step.

The 2002 La Joie is composed of 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Malbec. Deep garnet-brick in color, it needs a lot of swirling to wake up evocative notes of blackcurrant cordial, prunes, and figs, plus hints of tobacco leaves, dried Provence herbs, charcuterie, and tapenade with a waft of incense. The full-bodied palate explodes with youthful cassis and kirsch flavors, framed by firm, grainy tannins and just enough freshness, finishing long and earthy.

The 2018 La Joie is made from 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc, 5% Petit Verdot, and 3% Malbec. Deep garnet-purple in color, it swaggers out of the glass with classic creme de cassis, cedar, and pencil-lead notes, giving way to notes of bay leaves, fertile loam, and cast-iron pan with a waft of charcuterie. Medium to full-bodied, the palate has a rock-solid structure of fine-grained tannins and seamless freshness, finishing very long and multi-layered. 2,500 cases were made.

Named after the Applejack eucalypts that surround the vineyard, which was planted at Gladysdale in 1997. Seven clones including 114, 115, MV6, D2V5, D5V15, Pommard and Abel! I've long considered the Applejack vineyard to be one of the greatest sites for pinot in Australia and I'm not sure I've seen a better version than the 2021. A deep, bright, crimson purple. Maraschino cherry into plum, there's an exotic and riotous amalgam of Asian five-spice and a gentle savoury, umami character. What elevates this vintage is the concentration, along with Applejack's trademark perfume and spice. Just so vibrant and fresh on the palate, the tannins are both silky and plentiful. You will have no problems opening and enjoying this now, but the wine's track record suggests you'll thank me if you still have some to drink 7–10 years from now, if not longer.

Lokoya's 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Spring Mountain is a bit floral and herbal, with lovely bay leaf and sage nuances vaguely reminiscent of some Margaret River Cabernets. Ripe cassis and cherries round out the full-bodied palate in a seamless combination of velvet and silk, finishing long and slinky, again marked by fine-grained, soft tannins. Fruit from two vineyards—Yverdon and Wurtele—goes into this wine, which aged in Sylvain barriques for their subtlety.

The purity of fruit with currants, spices and flowers is very impressive, as is the long, creamy texture. Full-bodied with medium, round tannins and a fresh finish. Oyster and iodine notes come through. Excellent. Drink after 2026.

Aromas of violets and blackberries with some black olives follow through to a full-bodied palate with finesse, polish and great length. Velvety tannins. Incredible finish. Great class here. Drinkable now, but better to hold for about five or six years.

This is an amazing young wine with blackcurrant, iodine, oyster shell and tile. Crushed stone, too. Full-bodied, yet bright and linear, with great depth and intensity. Tensioned and formed with superb tannins. Framed and real. Speaks of the place. Give this four to five years of bottle age. One for the cellar. Try after 2027.

Black olives, dark fruit and earth. Pumice, cloves and other spices, too. Full-bodied, yet layered and so intense. Nuanced, yet powerful. Pomerol with a flak jacket! This needs at least five or six years of bottle age.

So much crushed lead pencil, tile and dried flowers, together with blackberries and brambleberries. Full-bodied with round, polished tannins. Layered and so delicious. Black olives and graphite at the end. This potpourri of Napa cabernet character takes your palate on a tour of so many of the regions, including all the mountains, such as Howell, Veeder and Spring Mountain, as well as Atlas Peak, Stags Leap, Yountville and St. Helena. Precision and polish to the wine. Drinkable now, but better to hold.

Fantastic vintage, fantastic winemaking and the addition of 10% Merlot make for a magical experience of structure and graceful complexity in this always impressive, collectible wine. Saline, dried herb, cedar, pencil and crushed rock provide a landscape of savory earthiness, while a hint of rich red fruit remains subtle and youthful in grippy intensity. Enjoy best from 2028–2038.

This is a supremely glamorous wine – the winery's inaugural and eponymous Merlot, before it was renamed La Muse. Beautiful maturity on the nose of old rose petals, incense and something sweet. The palate becomes a lesson in textural purity – all cashmere. There are roses, violets and a whole flower garden in the mouth, hedonistic in its plushness and abundance but remaining elegant, charming and lightfooted. Enjoying it over a number of hours was a particularly delicious experience. It still has an innate power amid all that cashmere texture and fruit finesse.

Tasting this gives you a glimpse of what is to come from the 2018. Supremely grand and elegant, a much broader structure as the tannins have relaxed their grip, the net has opened and with it, given access to the pathways of flavour which are energised by the freshness of acidity. Complex chains of flavour make this a difficult wine to categorise or even describe. What is clear is that the wine is beginning to unfurl, giving a glimpse of the beauty and array of flavours and sensations to come. The very essence of desire.

Such a pretty nose, floral, redolent also of autumn fruits and damsons, which over time in the glass releases the more oak driven mocha notes. The palate is compact, dense, the tannins are remarkably silky despite the youthfulness, the fruit is intensely ripe but not sweet. The overall impression is one of a circular wine, plush, hedonistic in the making, the flavours still in motion, becoming darker as they progress through the palate. There’s a freshness, a ‘tingle’ almost to the acidity mirroring the earlier picking regime, the efforts taken in the vineyard and at harvest to capture the essential freshness of Sonoma. The wine ends on black liquorice and coffee and the finish is seemingly endless – cut short only by the next wine. It’s a baby for sure.

Also from two sites, the 2019 Spring Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon is all Cabernet Sauvignon aged in 87% new French oak. It's another deeply hued Cabernet revealing a stunning bouquet of ripe red and black plums, graphite, bouquet garni, tobacco, and sappy flowers. Rich, full-bodied, gorgeously balanced, and lengthy on the palate, it deserves 4-5 years of bottle age and will keep for 20-25 years. As with most Spring Mountain releases, it shines just as much for its complexity, nuance, and balance as its power and richness.

Seeing 20/20 – Sonoma & Anderson Valley New ReleasesThe 2017 Le Désir is off the charts fabulous and also one of the most compelling wines I have tasted from Vérité. Mocha, chocolate, licorice, leather, menthol, pine and spice soar out of the glass. The 2017 is vertical, heady and extravagantly rich yet not at all overdone, a hugely appealing combination in my book.