Noir indeed - this lovely light-bodied, juicy wine is a voyage of discovery by the intrepid Peter Fraser. The grapes were mechanically sorted 50% whole berries, wild-fermented, 14-16 days on skins, matured for 6 months in used French oak. A wonderfully different wine, welcoming investigation, not hiding anything. 62% grenache, 15% shiraz, 12% mourvedre, 6% carignan, 3% cinsaut and 2% counoise.

It's impossible to bypass the southern Rhone Valley in writing about this wine with its blend of grenache, mourvedre, shiraz, cinsaut, carignan and counoise. Autosuggestion of course, but its ultra-fragrant bouquet crosses into that of the garrigue, the juicy palate bubbling with similar flavours. Such value.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyMoving to the reds, the 2017 Pinot Noir Truly Rita comes from the Dierberg-Drum Canyon Vineyard in the Sta. Rita Hills. Its medium ruby hue is followed by rocking notes of black raspberry and wild strawberry fruits, notes of flowery incense, and subtle marine-like minerality. These carry to a beautifully textured, ripe, balanced Pinot Noir that has everything you look for from this appellation. It's going to evolve for a solid decade.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyI loved the 2018 Pinot Noir Solomon Hills, which shows the pure, elegant, fruit-driven style of this vineyard beautifully. Pure raspberry and strawberry fruits, lots of flowers and sappy herb notes, medium-bodied richness, bright acidity, and background oak all make for a brilliant Pinot Noir to enjoy over the coming 7-8 years.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountySpiced cherries, strawberries, sappy flowers, and hints of gamey, foresty notes all emerge from the 2018 Pinot Noir Sta. Rita Hills, and it's medium-bodied, elegant, and seamless on the palate. This stunning value should be snatched up by readers.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyThe darker ruby/plum-hued 2018 Pinot Noir 3D offers more forest floor, gamey herbs, salted meat, and assorted mulled red and black fruits notes as well as a richer, medium to full-bodied, beautifully textured style on the palate. It's a big, rich, seamless Pinot Noir that excels on its texture and balance.

The 2018s from Santa Barbara CountyPure lemon, honeysuckle, caramelized stone fruits, iodine, and toasted almond notes emerge from the 2018 Chardonnay Machado. This medium-bodied beauty has bright, juicy acidity, terrific balance, and a great finish. As with all of Greg's wines, it's accessible today yet has another decade or prime drinking.

The meat, the bones, the sinew, the pucker, seems to be a theme for the top flight reds of Yangarra. The soils kept alive with biodynamic activity, a plot here set aside for this wine. Holds 35% new oak but smells a bit more, tastes a bit less. This is beautiful, held to medium weight but with a cornucopia of spice an absolute and dominating feature. Garam masala, Chinese five spice, paprika in there and a dash of white pepper, it’s hauntingly scented and flavours are fresh albeit doused in this souk. Ripe and dark fruit characters, a touch of rum n raisin, dried plum and earthy berries. Shale-like minerality here too. Magnificent length unfurling over layers of fine, silty tannin and cool, faintly herbal acidity. Shapeless but tight, lacy and yet stacked with flavour, this is such a great shiraz.

Aged in all French oak, 56% of it new, Dina Arata’s old-vine site contributes soft supple waves of mocha, coffee and black-cherry-berry flavors. Juicy lengthy tannins and generous oak give it power and substance within a graceful buoyancy and lasting freshness.

This impressively complex wine is breezy in lemon, grapefruit and strawberry flavors, with quenching acidity lifting it up. Salmon in color, it unfurls a balanced texture of richness and crispness with ease, lasting on thepalate and mind.

Vines planted mostly in 1971. Not due for release until July but it came across my desk now.Fine-grained tannin. Sweet, ripe fruit. Creamy mouthfeel. And while it all feels controlled, it feels luxurious throughout, perfumed, plush, those kind of vibes. There are sweet herb/tobacco-like characters here too and sophisticated, smoky edges. It’s still coming together but the fine spread of tannin, gorgeous flavour and reach through the finish all spell (high) quality.

Vintage Retrospective: The 2001 Napa Valley CabernetsBright medium red-ruby; not hugely saturated. A bit darker and more minerally on the nose than La Muse but still with a slightly sauvage quality to its aromas of black raspberry, spice cake, underbrush and coffee. Thick and rich on entry, then fairly large-scaled, sweet and deep in the middle palate. A step up in texture, depth and size from La Muse, showing a darker, more medicinal character to its blackberry, black cherry and dark chocolate flavors and perhaps greater potential longevity. Ultimately quite structured and uncompromisingly dry, finishing with slowly mounting, echoing length and serious but nicely buffered dusty tannins that should continue to soften with cellaring. I find this sweeter for a Médoc blend than La Muse is for a Pomerol. A superb showing, and full of life.

From a high elevation site with sandy, ironstone soils—and from a terrific vintage—this Shiraz is unlike many of its South Aussie counterparts. There are sanguine and graphite notes amid the broody black cherry, plum and vanilla aromas, plus a raw power that’s exhilarating. Alongside the muscle there’s also exceptional poise, balance and complexity. Chalky, precise tannins weave together the silky fruit. Drink 2022–2040.

Sonoma: Another Brilliant Vintage in 2018Lastly, the 2018 Chardonnay Gold Run saw the longest élevage in the lineup and spent 16 months in 78% new French oak. The wine handled the élevage beautifully and just has subtle creamy oak tones as well as lots of brioche, spice box, white flowers, and orchard-like fruit aromas and flavors. Beautifully balanced, opulent, and concentrated on the palate, it has notable acidity, plenty of focus and cut, and a great finish. It's another classically styled, brilliantly done Chardonnay from winemaker Lisa Valtenbergs that I'd be thrilled to have in the cellar.

Sonoma: Another Brilliant Vintage in 2018The 2018 Chardonnay Broken Road Vineyard is also terrific, with lots of minerality as well as stone fruits, brioche, honeysuckle, and toasty oak. As with most of these 2018, it has a forward, supple texture, beautiful balance, and a great finish that shows a touch of salinity and more minerality. This is a straight-up classy, elegant yet textured Chardonnay to enjoy over the coming 7-8 years or so.

Sonoma: Another Brilliant Vintage in 2018The 2017 Pinot Noir Fog Dance Vineyard comes from a vineyard located on a hillside in Green Valley, south of the town of Forestville (which gets a lot of fog, hence the name), and was brought up in 47% new French oak. It shows its cooler region nicely yet still has plenty of richness and depth, offering spiced cherry and berry fruits as well as autumn leaves, spice, and dried herb aromas and flavors. Silky, medium to full-bodied, and beautifully balanced, It's a complete, thoroughly satisfying Pinot Noir that has the capacity to evolve positively for a solid 7-8 years.

Sonoma: Another Brilliant Vintage in 2018Another release from the cooler, Green Valley region of the Russian River Valley, the 2017 Chardonnay Three Jacks Vineyard comes from vines planted in 1995 (clones: old Wente, Rued, Dijon 95 and Clone 15) and was fermented and aged in one-third new French oak. Baked apples, toasted bread, spice, honeycomb, and caramelized pineapple notes all dominate the bouquet, and this beauty has a touch of Meursault-like style in its rich, powerful, waxy, honeyed profile. Balanced and textured, with good acidity and a great finish, it's another seriously good Chardonnay from this estate to drink over the following 7-8 years.

Sonoma: Another Brilliant Vintage in 2018Starting with the 2018 Pinot Noir Russian River Valley, which comes from multiple sites and was brought up in 27% new French oak, it has a vivid ruby hue to go with classic Russian River notes of mulled cherry and raspberry fruits, cola, spice box, and dried herbs. Medium-bodied, round, and beautifully textured, it's a totally charming, balanced, elegant Pinot Noir that punches way above its weight.

Sonoma: Another Brilliant Vintage in 2018More brioche, honeysuckle, pineapple, and caramelized citrus notes all emerge from the 2018 Chardonnay Four Hearts Vineyards, which is beautifully balanced, medium to full-bodied, and textured on the palate. It shows the more supple, easygoing style of the vintage for Chardonnay yet still has beautiful freshness, good concentration, and a great finish.

Sonoma: Another Brilliant Vintage in 2018Checking in as 94% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Merlot all from the Alden Park Vineyard in the Alexander Valley, the 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon Innovant saw an extended maceration and aging in 40% new French oak. It has a terrific nose of blue and black fruits as well as classic Cabernet tobacco, bay leaf, violets, graphite, and crushed rock-like minerality. Rich and concentrated on the palate, yet light on its feet and elegant, this thrillingly pure Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon will evolve for 15-20 years or more.

By California standards Matanzas Creek is one of the state’s historic estates. Located in Sonoma County’s lovely Bennett Valley, Matanzas Creek has been turning out dependably excellent wines since its inception in 1977 -- and this one may be the best ever. A blend of red grapes dominated by Merlot plus about 30% Cabernet Sauvignon it is rich and fleshy yet as perfectly balanced as a ballerina twirling gracefully across the stage. With fresh black and red fruit flavors it is robust without being heavy, and the finish is long and utterly satisfying.

Deep, bright red/purple colour. Fresh and clean on the nose, with berries, cherries and spices to sniff. Really lovely aromas and flavours, understated and still evolving. The palate is fine and long with supple tannins and great harmony. A superb glass of shiraz.

You know what I like best about Yangarra’s wines? The neck tags that the samples land with. There’s no bullshit tasting notes (who cares), no marketing guff. Just facts. And numbers.More, please.Of course, when the back story is uncompromised, you don’t need anything but facts, and with this Yangarra Ovitelli Grenache 2018, there are fewer shortcuts from the start.The grapes, for one, come from a block of biodynamically farmed bush vines at Kangarilla planted back in ‘46. Tick. That fruit is handpicked, mechanically sorted, and wild fermented in concrete egg, spending a huge 158 days on skins. Tick. There’s no oak maturation either, the wine pressed off said skins and matured for another 6 months in an egg. Tick. Oh and final numbers for the fellow anoraks – pH 3.27 TA 6.4g/L.When you don’t compromise, it’s much harder to fuck things up, and Pete Fraser hasn’t dropped the ball. Like the best concrete-raised releases, this is a beautiful wine. A bright wine. A lively, red-fruited, blink-and-you’ll-miss-the-magic style, the fruit easy-going given the serious intent, yet with tannins that are bigger, grander, more compelling, more bitter and mouthwatering than such juiciness is associated with. It’s a wine that you can, and will, drain a bottle of without feeling like anyone is trying too hard.I missed the ’17 Ovitelli but loved the compact ’16. This feels even brighter and limpido – yet another Yangarra Grenache that feels right and true.Best drinking: now to at least a decade. But I’d go earlier.

Herbal, with characteristics of peppercorn, cedar and pencil shavings, this beautiful wine is also dusty and mineral-driven, with demure flavors of red and black currant. Full bodied and well structured, it shows an underlying softness that should continue to soften in the cellar. Enjoy best from 2026–2031.

From a single block biodynamically grown on a cool site in a cool vintage, this Shiraz, which sees 25% whole bunch, is aged in large French foudre. The result is an extraordinarily precise and complex wine, it’s only downfall being an unfortunately heavy bottle. Notes of raspberry, plum, iodine, damp earth, and chocolate and spice (neither from oak) are cinched with sinewy tannins and lifted by crystalline acidity. Manages an exacting and difficult tightrope walk of power and generosity with restraint and elegance. Drink now, or cellar until 2030—at least.