Full body. Medium acid. Lots of fruit, oaky. Lots of tannin, leather, black fruit, chocolate. Classic Zin loaded with bramble fruit, with balanced oak and tannins.

Wonderful, bright, red berry nose. Extremely soft and tasty.

Black fruits, oak, pepper, brown spice, very lush toasted oak with spicy notes dominates dark, cherry-berry fruit.

Cherries, pepper, cedar. Very complex with lush cherry fruit dominate over peppery spice.

Bright and intriguing, boasting passion fruit, citrus and pear flavors that just don't quit. Any oak in this is well submerged. Delicious.

Chewy core of earthy raspberry and spice. Picks up oak and peppery notes on the finish.

A sweet layer of smoky oak character runs through the pear and honey flavors in this ripe, broad, harmonious white.

Well worth the price for its exquisite blend of silky delicacy and dense strawberry and black cherry fruit that is neatly framed with bacon-crisp French oak toastiness. Balance is the key to vinuous greatness, and this one keeps so many balls in the air that you'd think winemaker Dan Goldfield was a juggler instead of a winemaker.

Aromatic oak and peach with mild grassy notes; clean, balanced citrus-peach flavors; good length in finish.

Lush and creamy, long and dense.

Medium-full-bodied and balanced to softness.

Our favorite (Sonoma Chardonnay) was Stonestreet's 1993 Chardonnay. Toast, spice and brown sugar on the nose match the lush, buttery-caramel flavors on the palate. This is probably Stonestreet's biggest and best yet.

A high-toned aroma, slightly citrus-scented with a suggestion of tropical fruit, seasoned with sweet, spicy oak. The fruit is wonderfully concentrated and opulent but not heavy, and it has a polished seamless texture. At once rich and light, the wine seems somehow poised in the mouth from forepalate to finish.

Peach-like flavors remind of Germany's warmer regions, such as the Pfalz or Nahe. This is a low-alcohol, lightly sweet Kabinett-style riesling.

This wine simply stopped you short with its integration of almond, pear and apple elements, which play over your palate with tantalizing complexity. That sort of delight is all too rare in California Chardonnay in that the fruit components are wonderfully interwoven in themselves, amplified just as they should be by gentle application of oak.

Ripe cherry flavors are the immediate and principal attraction, and they expand on the palate.

Full-bodied yet graceful, balancing good acidity and oak with lush aromas and flavors of blackberry. Try with grilled beef.

One of the 12 top-rated wines tasted since December 1994. Spicy-jammy Zinfandel aroma, oak accents; well-balanced flavors packed with bright fruit; a complete wine. Good with venison chili, hearty cheeses.

Twenty dollars for a zinfandel? For most zinfandels, no. For some, yes. This is one of them. Mendocino County, and particularly the Anderson Valley, is great zinfandel country, as this wine illustrates. It's a big-bodied wine with a deep, garnet red color. The taste is intense, and the flavors are concentrated. The wine has power and a long, lingering finish. The oak is a bit forward, but let's face it, oak is where the action is these days. Keep the wine around a couple of years and the oak will blend in. But who's going to keep it around that long?

Rich oak, ripe raspberries and touches of chocolate come together nicely in the clean, medium-deep aromas of this well-defined young Syrah, and its flavors of berries, spice, pepper and earth keep it squarely on the varietal track.

Notes of herbs, apricots and mint. Nice creamy texture with great balance. Best Buy.

Effusively fruity, with pretty pear, spice pineapple and creamy vanilla flavors that fold together nicely in a seamless, elegant package.