This shows a vivid boysenberry and blackberry fruit profile, laced with licorice, roasted apple wood and violet notes, all backed by a solidly grippy structure and a late zing of minerality. Best from 2021 through 2038.

Intense, with açaí berry, plum and blueberry flavors pumping through, scored with briar, licorice snap and fruitcake notes. The roasted apple wood frame holds all the elements together through the finish. Show lots of youthful grip, so this will need some patience. Best from 2021 through 2040.

The nose is fresh and penetrating white peach, pear and crème brulee. The palate is well-poised with toasted vanilla bean, popcorn and polished, waxy citrus. Drink 2019 – 2024.

The nose is peppercorn, geranium, licorice and bright blackberry. The palate is a beautiful concentration of florals and blackberry with solid structure. Drink 2019 – 2026.

The nose is a delicate understated briary red berry, warm garden vine fruit and violet. The palate offers up a lean geranium, lilac, hard cherry and saline finishing with dry cherry. Drink 2019 – 2029.

USA, California, Sonoma: 2017 Vintage – Part 2 The 2016 Merlot Keyes Vineyard aged 18 months in 40% new French oak. It has a medium to deep ruby color and singular nose with loads of exotic perfume: candied violet, tapenade, powdered blueberry, boysenberry, mint chocolate, kirsch, roast plums—so classic and so layered! Medium to full-bodied, it's silky, intense, plush and seductive, unfolding its layers slowly and expansively. It has fantastically pixelated, ripe tannins and seamlessly integrated freshness on the very long finish. This is perfectly approachable now but will develop well in bottle. 500 cases produced.

USA, California, Sonoma: 2017 Vintage – Part 2 A selection of the best nine barrels of the vintage, the 2016 Pinot Noir Nine Barrels was aged 15 months in 58% new oak. It has a medium ruby color with aromas of spiced cranberry jelly, black cherry jam, shaved nutmeg and cinnamon stick with touches of pencil shavings, leather and smoked meats. Medium-bodied, silky, and intensely flavored, it offers loads of ripe fruits and savory accents. It has a firmer frame of grainy tannins and seamlessly woven freshness, finishing long and dense. This is a powerful Pinot Noir that's drinking beautifully now but will reward a couple more years of bottle age. 210 cases were made.

USA, California, Sonoma: 2017 Vintage – Part 2 A selection of nine of the best barrels of the vintage, the 2016 Chardonnay Nine Barrels has a pretty nose with shaved nutmeg, citrus blossom, baked apple, allspice, white peaches and a unique salted meat/umami core with honey-nut notes. It's medium to full-bodied, rounded and creamy with fantastic intensity of savory flavor layers, mouthwatering acidity and a very long, spice-laced finish. Lovely! 210 cases were made.

USA, California, Sonoma: 2017 Vintage – Part 2 Deep ruby-purple and youthfully shy on the nose, the 2016 Syrah Hawks Butte opens slowly to cassis, bay leaves, damp earth, baked blueberries and boysenberry with hints of mint chocolate, olive and beef drippings. Medium to full-bodied, it offers deep, intense flavor layers with a pleasantly chewy frame, seamless freshness and a long, very flavorful finish. This is gorgeous now but will reward a few more years of bottle age. 500 cases were made.

USA, California, Sonoma: 2017 Vintage – Part 2 The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Revelation was aged for 20 months in 65% new French oak. Deep ruby, it gives up Morello cherries, crushed blackcurrants, roasted plum, cedar, pencil shavings and tobacco leaves with accents of violet, cocoa, eucalyptus and a classy frame of sweet spices. Medium to full-bodied, it's powerful and intense but plush and seductive, wrapped by granulated tannins and seamless freshness and finishes very long. This should age very well but is perfectly approachable now. 223 cases produced.

USA, California, Sonoma: 2017 Vintage – Part 2 Medium to deep ruby, the 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Vales Edge aged 32 months in 62% new oak and was bottled unfined and unfiltered. It opens with pure scents of cassis, garrigue, cedar, bay leaf, Morello cherries and warm chocolate with notes of beef drippings, red fruit sparks and violet. Medium-bodied and silky, it floods the mouth with pure, intensely flavored layers, plushly textured with pixelated tannins and seamless freshness, finishing very long. Wow! This is gorgeous and should develop in bottle well over the next 10 to 15+ years. 156 cases produced.

USA, California, Sonoma: 2017 Vintage – Part 2 The 2016 Cabernet Sauvignon Smothers-Remick Ridge Vineyard aged 32 months in 45% new oak and was bottled unfined and unfiltered. It has a deep ruby color and takes its time opening up to scents of warm chocolate, cassis, hoisin and Indian spices with layers of lilac, bacon fat, pencil shavings, cedar, Morello cherries and a eucalyptus hint. Medium to full-bodied and silky, it offers intense and ripe fruits, still with a youthful robe of new oak. It has a juicy, plush frame with grainy-textured tannins and a long finish. This merits at least another couple of years in bottle. 322 cases produced.

Brushy sage meets succulent blackberry, blueberry and tar in this impressive wine, which offers generous structure and complex tannin. Though juicy and decidedly enjoyable now, it will benefit from further cellaring; best 2022 through 2032.

2012 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon - I'm still waiting to taste one that I don't have anything nice to say about. There are plenty of nice things to say about this one - classic varietal character, structured acidity, complexity of aroma and flavor, very approachable in its youth, and set to improve with age. I especially like the dusty minerality balanced against the fruit. This will seem like a real bargain fifteen years down the road -- if you can wait that long.

This legendary bottling shows all the hallmarks of a young, vital Cabernet that needs plenty of time. It’s classically balanced and rich in blackberries, currants and chocolate, with perhaps a bit more tannic structure than in the past, due to the cool vintage. Drink from 2018 and well beyond.

The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Bosché comes from a vineyard that sits on the gravelly, stony soils of the Rutherford Bench. It is 91% Cabernet Sauvignon and 9% Merlot, aged 24 months in French oak prior to bottling. This wine shows plenty of new, velvety glove leather, cedar wood, kirsch and blacker currants. It is full-bodied, ripe, but wonderfully elegant and pure, with a voluptuous texture. This vineyard is totally dry-farmed. Drink over the next 15+ years. These are all classically styled wines. Of course, long-time winemaker Ted Edwards is still steering the fortunes of this historic producer. All three of the 2005s are still amazingly youthful wines at age ten.

The 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Bosche (from that iconic site on the west side of Rutherford planted in gravelly, loamy soils) is composed of 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Merlot, and the balance Cabernet Franc. It boasts a dense ruby/purple color along with a classic nose of loamy soil, kirsch liqueur, Provencal garrigue, black currants and spice box. Full-bodied, opulent, fleshy and fully mature with fabulous balance, it is hard to ignore this stunning 2001. The good news is that there were 2,400+ cases made of it from this 22-acre site. It is capable of lasting another 15-20 years. Two brilliant efforts from Freemark Abbey, this is the first time I tasted these wines as I missed them when I tasted the 2001s eight years ago.

Napa 2016 Vintage: 5 Consecutive Years of Fantastic Wines Dried apples and lemons with cream and peach undertones. Some pine needles. Full-bodied, layered and bright. Serious acidity at the end gives it energy and focus.

Brewer’s newest project is this cold-climate, whole cluster–fermented Syrah with exotic flavors and aromas of red fruit seasoned with lavender and peppercorn. Seamless and floral.

From Greg Brewer, the nose is black currant, licorice, herb, peppercorn and lavender. The palate entry is bright, sappy graphite, black plum and red pear.

Wine of the Day The Ex Post Facto by Greg Brewer, is a pure Syrah from one of state’s best artist/philosopher winemakers, his wines, especially this new project, are thinking man’s wines, but with a bit of whimsy and magic! Ex Post Facto (which means in Latin: with retroactive effect or force.” is Greg Brewer’s most recent wine (Syrah), he is more famous for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, with his Brewer-Clifton wines being post modern icons, but he has made some fantastic Syrah in his past, from his time at Melville, including his versions of Donna’s there, they were awesome wines often rivaling the best from Alban, Ojai and Sine Qua Non, which were some of the greats of the region at the time! And his search of zen purity and sense of place is legendary in the Santa Barbara region. These are not wines to miss out on! It’s funny to say or think, but I love Greg’s Syrah(s), always have, I feel they show a freedom that sometimes is lacking in his other wines, the come across more wild and natural, maybe it is just my personal interpretation or projection, it’s just the way they hit me and I love the racy and nervous intensity that have, the stemmy vigor and force that drives them intrigues me from head to toe! This 2016 Ex Post Facto, sold through Brewer-Clifton, where you can also get his Diatom Wines too, is beautifully detailed with exceptional layers of gripping flavors, it’s richly full on the palate, but full of vitality, class and cool climate character with a cascade of violets, briar spice, boysenberry, damson plum and opulent kirsch adding peppercorns, blueberry, cassis, minty/anise, mineral tones, tapenade, cedar and shaved vanilla. Everything vibrant and of course youthful at this stage, gaining density with air, at 14.5% it’s not a shy wine, but complex, balanced and with gorgeous dimension, it will appeal to fans of Cornas and Cote-Rotie as well as those that like Pax, Drew, Piedrasassi, Halcon and Stolpman, and even better yet, it is a great value, highlighting the fact that some of California’s best red wines can be under $50 and made from Syrah! I have been dying to get my hands on this new wine from Greg for months, ever since he told me he was doing this Ex Post Facto Syrah project, and it has met and surpassed my sky high expectations! Look for this is be a must have wine, it should reward mid term cellaring too, I plan to hide a few bottles from my greedy self to re-discover in 5 to 10 years time, it has some serious potential. As, I suspected, Greg used 100% whole cluster from an ultra cold site with 3 months in the fermenter, an unheard of length of time, which certainly shows in the depth here and he employed the eldest barrels he could find in the cellar in classic Northern Rhone traditional winemaking, and yes, I’m a stems freak and this is my holy grail.

At its best, petite sirah feels a bit like a black hole - a wine that ought to be described by an astrophysicist, not a wine critic. This opens with exceedingly rich, ripe blueberry and fig flavors, the pulls them inward, hiding that mass of fruit inside dark, spicy tannins, transmuting alcohol warmth into cool, stony persistence. It's a strange but wonderful sensation. This comes from a vineyard planted on the gravelly loam of the Talmage bench, at the northern end of the Mayacamas mountain range. In addition to younger, irrigated blocks, this includes fruit from dry-farmed vines between 70 and 80 years old. Try to forget a bottle or two in the back of a wine cellar for two decades or more.

Santa Barbara Dreamin'…Part Two The 2017 Chardonnay Katherine's is the most distinctive wine in this range. Crushed rocks, slate, lemon peel and graphite are some of the many notes that flesh out in an expansive, layered Chardonnay endowed with tremendous pedigree and sheer character. The Katherine's will be fascinating to follow as it develops in bottle. Even today, though, it is a true standout.

Named for the diatomaceous earth made from the fossilized remains of ancient sea creatures. Katherine’s is a 50-year-old self-rooted vineyard that butts up against the Bien Nacido Vineyard. Brewer explains the wine is made in a cloistered environment, a “vacuum with a slow trajectory.” Reaching an equilibrium of edge and roundness (no ML here), we find vanilla custard and lemon curd.

2017 CHARDONNAY, KATHERINE’S The nose is tropical, lush pineapple, coconut, banana and honey. The palate entry is juicy fresh lean green apple and lemon zest.