The 2013 Grenache High Sands has a medium/deep ruby-purple color and simply stunning nose of crushed raspberries, Bing cherries and potpourri with hints of lavender, star anise, vanilla, cinnamon stick and pepper. The concentrated, full-bodied palate juxtaposes remarkable freshness and a firm, finely grained backbone with voluptuous fruit spanning extraordinary depth. Heady, multilayered and yet with a solid backbone that suggests great ageing potential, Yangarra hits a whole other level with this vintage of High Sands! It's delicious now, but should greatly reward another 3-5 years of patience and drink a further 20+ years. Wow.

A gorgeous effort as well, the 2014 La Muse is a Merlot-dominated cuvee blended with 10% Cabernet Franc and 2% Malbec. This deep ruby/purple-colored beauty boasts a terrific perfume of black raspberries, cassis, graphite, chocolate, and a beautiful earthy minerality. This isn’t your over the top, opulent Merlot and shows incredible class and purity, as well as full-bodied richness, high, yet integrated tannin, impeccable balance and a great finish. It’s not anywhere close to primetime (which is rare for a 2014) and needs 4-5 years at a minimum. It’s going to be incredibly long-lived.

The 2014 La Joie exudes freshness, energy and intensity. Black cherry, plum, licorice, lavender espresso and expressive spiced notes are all beautifully delineated in the glass. Raspberry jam, wild flowers, mint and gently spiced notes are laced into the super-expressive, silky finish. A final kick of Cabernet Sauvignon intensity adds lift in the 2014 La Joie, Vérité's Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend.

The 2014 La Joie has a spicy black purple color and a big, sweet kiss of camphor, black truffle, pen ink, blackcurrants and unsmoked cigar tobacco, followed by layers of fruit and glycerin in an opulent, beautifully savory, pure and multidimensional wine. The final blend Seillan produced in 2014 was 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot. This is a compellingly great effort once again. It should be given 2-5 years of bottle age, then drunk over the following three decades.

The estate’s Cabernet Sauvignon dominated release is the 2014 La Joie. It’s an incredible wine based on 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and the balance Petit Verdot. Reminding me of a top vintage of Ducru-Beaucaillou (the 2010?) with its classic Cabernet character, it offers thrilling notes of crème de cassis, exotic flowers, liquid rock-like minerality, and graphite and lead pencil nuances. Deep, concentrated, and backward, it has perfect balance, good acidity, and an undeniable Bordeaux-like weight and texture. Nowhere near primetime, it needs 5-7 years of cellaring and is going to keep for three decades.

The 2017s From Sonoma Another magical wine is the 2017 Chardonnay Gold Run, which comes from vines planted in 1982. This rich, white flower, crushed citrus, honeysuckle, and spice-driven Chardonnay is full-bodied, with tons of fruit, background oak, and a massive finish. It’s another rich, concentrated, yet always vibrant and pure Chardonnay that will keep for over a decade. Hats off to winemaker Lisa Valtenbergs for a bevy of truly brilliant Chardonnays.

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.

Composed of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc, and 6% Petit Verdot, the 2022 La Joie has a deep garnet-purple color. It springs from the glass with bold notes of black currant preserves, baked plums, and juicy blueberries, followed by suggestions of mint tea, underbrush, and lilacs. The full-bodied palate has a rock-solid structure of grainy tannins and bold freshness to support the generous black fruit layers, finishing long with a minty lift.

This is taut, concentrated and very fine. There’s a lovely purity to the lemon and lime fruit, with just a slight hint of peach and pear richness, showing lovely crystalline fruit with a stony minerality sitting underneath. Not showy: this is restrained and intense with lovely precision, and potential for development. One of Australia’s great Chardonnays.

The 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon Spring Mountain is a classy, elegant wine. It shows all the f inesse of Spring Mountain, with a fair amount of tannin. Dark red/purplish fruit, lavender, rose petal, spice and blood orange open with some reluctance. The Spring Mountain Cabernet is usually more sensual and approachable in the early going. The 2023, on the other hand, needs quite a bit of time.

The 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon from Cardinale is dense and packed to the core. Dark red cherry, plum, mocha, spice and espresso all race across the palate. Cardinale is a blend of top sites across Napa Valley, both valley floor and mountain, which yields a more plush, generous Cabernet Sauvignon relative to the wines Chris Carpenter makes from pure mountain sites. There's a bit more new oak imprint as well

Notably complete, with aromas of fresh flowers, cherries, wild berries, graphite, minerals,
plum skins and blood orange. The palate is silken, with no hard edges, finely tuned tannins
and notes of five spice and red and blue fruits, plus an herbal, savory edge. Excellent, with
plenty of flair. Drink or hold. Screw cap.

This wine is all about nerve and minerality, with aromas of lemon pith, lime blossoms,
honeysuckle, grapefruit, oyster shells and struck matches. The palate is powerful and
tightly wound, with notes of crushed stones, gingerbread, cordial, lime curd, pastry and
sherbet. Flashy and concentrated, with a fine line of acidity, this is a great example of the
new wave of Australian chardonnay. Excellent. Drink or hold. Screw cap.

A notably complete single-vineyard bottling, with an excellent balance of tension and
power. Aromas of lime leaves, sliced lemons, sea spray, green apples, oyster shells and
flint. The palate is tense and nervy, with a strong mineral drive and strength, which will
unravel beautifully over time. Floral and mineral in character, this chardonnay will reward
time in the bottle. Drink or hold. Screw cap.