USA, California, Northern California: Napa & Some Sonoma New Releases The 2016 Chardonnay Upper Barn Vineyard comes from the oldest vines on the estate, planted in 1982. Fermented in barrel and aged for 11 months in 47% new French oak, it is a little closed to begin, slowly unfurling to reveal pink grapefruit, white peaches and Granny Smith apples with nuances of honeysuckle, lemon tart and praline. Medium to full-bodied, it explodes in the mouth with citrus and savory layers, with a gorgeous silkiness and loads of ginger and mineral sparks coming through on the finish Wow!

North Coast Part 1: Napa Valley’s Incredible 2016s Lots of pine forest, savory herbs, California bay leaf, and both black and blue fruits emerge from the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain District. It’s another full-bodied, singular wine from Chris that’s perfectly balanced, with beautiful concentration and the purity and balance that’s the hallmark of this great vintage. Short-term cellaring will be the name of the game here and it will be long lived. Anticipated maturity: 2021-2046

From a vineyard owned since 1994, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Mount Veeder is another mountain wine that’s going to benefit from 4-5 years of bottle age. Staked with layers of blue fruits, crushed rock, graphite and lead pencil characteristics, this beauty is full-bodied, super concentrated, opulent, and texture. It’s another awesome wine from this estate that will have three decades of longevity.

More backward and tight, the 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Spring Mountain comes from a handful of vineyards around 1,900 feet in elevation. While they have been buying fruit from Spring Mountain since 2003, the first vintage for this cuvee was 2005. This deeply colored 2015 reveals loads of floral and violet nuances as well as brilliantly pure blue fruits, graphite, and crushed rock characteristics. With building minerality, full-bodied richness, and an elegant, seamless, silky style on the palate, it needs 4-5 years of bottle age and will keep for 2+ decades.

The 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Mt. Veeder is gorgeous, but it is also going to require the most time of these wines to come together. Firm tannins provide the backbone for an exciting array of aromas and flavors. Intense savory and mineral notes meld into layers of blue/blackish fruit in a big, full-bodied Cabernet endowed with stunning depth and structure. All the best elements of the house style come together. With time in the glass the fruit opens up to balance some of the tannic heft, but this is without question a wine made for the cellar.

Another blockbuster, the 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Mt. Veeder, which has the largest production, exhibits a deep blue/purple color along with notes of burning embers, charcoal, sweet black currant liqueur, licorice and scorched earth. It possesses fabulous fruit along with full-bodied power, a voluptuous texture and beautiful density as well as richness. It is not far off the quality of the brilliant 2007. One of the stars in Jess Jackson's Artisans and Estates portfolio, Lokoya focuses on high elevation mountain vineyards in four separate Napa appellations. Winemaker Chris Carpenter has been the force behind these wines for many years.

If I had to pick a favorite of the trio, it would be the 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Mt. Veeder (280 cases). A Chateau Margaux look-alike, it possesses superb intensity and tremendous perfume as well as elegance allied to power. The sweet nose of tobacco leaf intertwined with melted licorice, spring flowers, black cherries, creme de cassis, and blueberries is extraordinary. With great intensity, medium to full body, tremendous richness, softer tannin that its two siblings, and a finish that lasts nearly 60 seconds, it is a sensationally seductive, rich, multilayered Cabernet Sauvignon to drink over the next 15-20 years.

USA, Northern California, Napa Valley: 2016 & 2017 – A Tale of Two Vintages A blend of 77% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Cabernet Franc, 7% Malbec, 5% Merlot and 3% Petit Verdot, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is deep garnet-purple colored and features gregarious crème de cassis, black cherry preserves and baked plums with touches of Indian spices, cigar box and charcuterie. Full, firm and decadently fruited, it has a fantastic foundation and very long, layered and expressive finish.

USA, Northern California, Napa Valley: 2016 & 2017 – A Tale of Two Vintages The 2016 Hartford Court Pinot Noir Seascape Vineyard is pale to medium ruby-purple colored and opens with vibrant cranberries, pomegranate and Bing cherries scents with touches of underbrush, wild sage, red roses and mossy bark with a waft of tilled soil. Medium to full-bodied, the palate packs in the elegant red fruit and earthy layers, finishing on a long, lingering, provocative mineral note.

The 2017s From Sonoma I also loved the 2016 Pinot Noir Arrendell Vineyard. Located in the Russian River and planted in 1975 to a heritage Martini Clone, this cool site struggles to ripen, giving this 2016 an exotic, complex, vibrant style along with its ample red and black fruits, candied violets, potpourri, and sandalwood. It’s one of the more vibrant, racier wines in the lineup, yet its acidity is nicely integrated, it’s flawlessly balanced, and it has a great, great finish. Give bottles a year or two and enjoy over the following decade.

USA, Northern California, Napa Valley: 2016 & 2017 – A Tale of Two Vintages The 2016 Hartford Court Chardonnay Jennifer’s Vineyard displays intense notes of grapefruit, green guava, mango and pineapple with nuances of talc, oyster shells and fresh ginger. The palate is medium-bodied, elegant and super intense with tightly wound layers of citrus and tropical fruits and bags of mineral notions on the epically long finish. This needs time but should emerge from the cellar gloriously in 2-3 years!

USA, Northern California, Napa Valley: 2016 & 2017 – A Tale of Two Vintages A blend of 88.2% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4.4% Petit Verdot, 4.2% Cabernet Franc and 3.2% Merlot, the deep garnet-purple colored 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Sycamore Vineyards comes skipping out of the glass with a spring it its step and singing notes of crushed blackcurrants, fresh blackberries and red and black plums with touches of underbrush, fungi, wild sage, chocolate mint and cigar boxes. Full-bodied and built like a brick house, it has a rock-solid frame of firm, grainy tannins and seamless freshness supporting the generous, crunchy fruit, finishing long with a touch of minerality.

The 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon Rockfall is a darker saturated red color and starts to show the more savory depth of this area, with notes of savory black olive, graphite, blackcurrants, wild forest herbs, and polished leather. The palate is full and structured and is holding on to its more chiseled tension, though it’s starting to come together and is long on the palate. It’s fantastic now, though it should have plenty of life ahead of it. Drink 2025-2040. This wine has a more angular and chiseled feel in this vintage, whereas the Christopher’s has more plush, elegant suppleness.

Boasting a saturated purple/red color, the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve Speciale is pretty on the nose, with deep notes of crème de cassis, lavender, graphite, fresh tobacco, and minty forest herbs. Full-bodied and ample on the palate, its mountainous savory notes build with an expansive feel and are joined by notes of smoked tea leaf and turned earth. It’s long on the palate and in need of time, but it will be well-matched with well-marbled steak or braised pork. Drink 2030-2050.

A deeper, saturated purple color, the 2021 Helena Dakota Vineyard is sourced from a more insulated and protected site with a lower elevation compared to the Helena Montana Vineyard, featuring alluvial clay soils, and is also entirely Cabernet Sauvignon. It offers resinous and deeper notes of blackcurrants, pressed sage, pencil lead, menthol, and floral perfume. The palate is full-bodied and broad-shouldered, with great energy driven by a fresh spine of acidity, ripe tannins, and a long, salty, and sanguine finish. It’s the most tense and coiled at this early stage of tasting and will take time to soften and fully open. Drink: 2027-2050.

It's a brilliant wine, it delivers on the promise of some of Napa's most talented mountain Cabernet winemakers who have come to Walla Walla. An elegance leaps forth from the glass with brilliant forest character, savoury herbs, bay leaf, hatch pepper, and elements of singed violets. The palate has beautiful depth with immediate approachability but a real sense of freshness and place. What a soaring example of Cabernet from one of Washington's most exciting new brands. Jett is a Washington winemaking project based in Walla Walla by the Jackson Family. Gianna Ghilarducci leads the winemaking in collaboration with mentor Chris Carpenter, and Rafael Jimenez oversees the vineyard management and all of the Jackson projects under Chris Carpenter in Napa.

100% Roussanne taken from Yangarra’s oldest Roussanne planting. 46% of the final blend was fermented on skins and remained on skins for around 7 months before pressing with only the free run juice retained. The other portion was whole bunch basket pressed into ceramic and fermented without skins. The final blend was exclusively matured in ceramic for a further 4 months. This is what I refer to as a ‘journey wine’. It takes you on a ride as it unfolds and shapeshifts in the glass with each version an improvement on the last. It’s an embarrassment of riches when it comes to complexity. This opens with sweet pops of honeysuckle and orange blossom before a savoury cut through of green almond and pistachio. Time in the glass reveals white peach, subtle dried apricot and orange peel tea along with a saline twang of pickled vegetables, some herbaceous sage leaf and a suggestion of white pepper. There’s an underlay of leesy complexity adding to the smorgasbord of character, too. A classy display. The palate is at once powerful and restrained with a lovely bite of preserved lemon teaming up with green almond to bring bitter appeal alongside Meyer lemon, pear and orange oil. The phenolics are febrile and pithy, holding sway and constricting the palate as it all carries to very long and detailed length. A phenomenal release.

100% Grenache sourced from Black 31 at 210 elevation – the highest section of the 1946 planted bush vine Grenache, which also has the deepest sandy soils. Here we have the pinnacle Grenache release from Yangarra. It’s perhaps a comparatively diaphanous release in the context of High Sands, though not to a fault. This is a classy wine of dimension, depth and endless character that will reward mightily with time in cellar. The depth to the aromas is instantly compelling while also wonderfully restrained – warm sand and mulch notes quickly make way for white pepper, cranberry, red cherry and raspberry compote. A swirl of the glass accentuates a fine mineral detail along with floral musk, brown spice and a lurking orange peel tang. This is at once savoury and pretty, demure and charming – such is its sophistication. The palate is intense but furled, sitting high in the mouth with red fruits aplenty while firm, febrile tannins provide anchor. Raspberry, red apple, cherry pit minerality, red rose, cranberry and orange peel are pulled into a corset of those stacked and powdery nebbiolo-like tannins which frame it all up and draw the wine to wonderful, poised length. Yangarra’s trajectory with this grape in this region is stratospheric. That’s not opinion—it’s fact.

The 2022 Proprietary Red Wine is a blend of 23% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Cabernet Franc, 17% Malbec, 37% Merlot, and 7% Petit Verdot. Deep garnet-purple in color, it comes bounding out with exuberant notes of juicy black cherries, boysenberry preserves, and potpourri, followed by hints of tilled soil and garrigue. The full-bodied palate delivers an impactful backbone of firm, grainy tannins and bold freshness to match the muscular black fruit, finishing long and fragrant.

Retail $35. Super clear, barely any hue at all in the glass. The classic provençal nose of subtle red fruit and white flower. Wonderful on the palate, just a delight. Sure, it’s subtle and reserved but near impeccable balance with lovely fruit and an acidity that persists for days.

This is pale in the glass, fragrant, expressly savoury and built on an energetic tension of fine tannin and vigorous acidity. This has a little more flesh and fruitfulness than the Ovitelli, but it’s neither particularly fleshy nor fruitful. And there’s much charm in that. Red cherry and sour black cherry, dried rose petals, Baharat spicing, pomegranate, clove, mace, dried orange peel and warm concrete, struck rock – it’s one of those wines that I just can’t stop smelling, so beguiling is the perfume. The structure is just as compelling, with insistent sandy, chalky tannins and a seam of electric acidity pulling the flavours long. Utterly individual and absolutely world class.

From original '46 vines next to the High Sands block. The '23 grenache wines are very pale in the glass, and they are all a degree lighter in alcohol due to the cool year (one I love). A vintage like this really illustrates the kinship with the avant-garde grenache of Gredos, and with Barbaresco, and refined Etna Rosso (Girolamo Russo in particular), rather than almost anything from the Rhône. Savoury, dried red fruits, cranberry, cherry and redcurrant, warm terracotta, bergamot, potpourri, sumac, ground cinnamon, star anise, so tightly coiled, but also tensile, finely expansive in its flavour delivery. There’s tension aplenty, and it promises to unfurl over a long life. Superb.

Predominantly from the oldest roussanne planting, a 1ha block, with a small parcel (15%) from younger vines for fragrance. The compression of power is becoming a key feature of what is one of Australia’s finest white wines. It’s refreshing to see the varietal hegemony of the usual suspects being consistently challenged. This, from a celebrated cool year, is at the start of a long and promising journey, somewhat shy, but layered with interest. Green almond, pear, pickled peach, pineapple quince, lemon balm, mint, young sage, oyster shell and a rocky, pumice-like mineral note, which is echoed by the ultrafine pithiness of the palate. It’s another superb release, but it’s one that needs a little time to settle into its long stride.

55/17/17/7/4% grenache blanc/grenache gris/roussanne/clairette/bourboulenc. Some grenache blanc and roussanne was fermented on skins for around seven months (47% of the finished blend). The remaining fruit was basket pressed. Texture. For me, it’s the defining point of this wine. Oh, I love the hard-to-pin-down flavours that drift through orchard fruits and citrus, suggest a piney and briny herbal note – like a sea breeze gliding through a cypress tree – and are further complexed with a hint of cracked fennel seed and white pepper. But it’s the texture that really elevates this, the frisson of pumiceous (it’s a word …) grip and succulent fruit, the sapid, mineral/tonic quality, the elegant tensioning, fine-tuned to perfection. What a delight.

22 was a cool year that produced some reticent but excellent grenache, while shiraz seemed to sail through untroubled. This is an infant, of course, but there’s a ready appeal not always seen at this stage, a meshing of red, blue and black fruits – ripe raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, tart boysenberry, red plum, black olive – with an overlay of baking spices, iodine, coffee grounds and beef bouillon. And iron, yes. It’s on the label. In the ground. In the wine. Here, the wine benefits from that soil transfer being elegant, filigreed, not rugged. It needs a little time to be its best, but it’s a superb release.