Light oak spices shade lots of fresh red-fruit flavors in this medium-bodied, generous and nicely balanced wine. It is well rounded and smooth on the palate, getting better with each sip.

13 West Coast Pinots at 90+ Points New reviews of elegant reds from California and Oregon Broadly textured and rich, with mocha notes accenting the dark cherry, roasted plum and wild berry flavors. Chocolate and spice details show on the creamy finish.

A wine of impact, the 2016 Pinot Noir Outland Ridge offers striking depth to match its bold personality. Succulent dark cherry, plum, spice, new leather and licorice are all pushed forward in this deep, fleshy Pinot from Kendall-Jackson.

Pale to medium ruby-purple colored, the 2015 Pinot Noir Jackson Estate Sonoma Coast reveals attractive cranberry, pomegranate and rhubarb notes with touches of rose hip tea, menthol, lavender and fragrant earth. Medium-bodied with lovely a satiny texture and fantastic freshness cutting through the intense red fruit flavors, it finishes long and perfumed.

Mendocino County’s cool Anderson Valley, which runs east-west toward the Pacific Ocean, now rivals the Russian River Valley in the California pinot noir arena. The 2015 Outland Ridge pinot from Jackson Estate is another beauty from Anderson Valley, showing excellent concentration and beautiful aromas of cherry and spice, good balance and structure and a lingering finish.

This plush-textured wine effortlessly blends ripe fruit, light spices and touches of oak to glide easily across the palate. While full bodied it is not heavy, but well balanced by good acidity and fine-grained tannins.

Offers spicy raspberry, black cherry and wilted rose notes.

Deftly balanced, this is slow to build nuance and complexity, unfolding to reveal tiers of spicy raspberry, black cherry and wilted rose. Though medium-weight, the flavors build intensity and nuance.

Deftly balanced, this is slow to build nuance and complexity, unfolding to reveal tiers of spicy raspberry, black cherry and wilted rose. Though medium-weight, the flavors build intensity.

Jackson Estate's 2014 Outland Ridge is a meaty pinot noir from the Anderson Valley. Showing savory notes of wood smoke and somewhat rustic tannins, this wine is also packed with dark cherry and raspberry fruit. It drinks well now but will be best in another two to three years.

Weekend Wine Picks This has nothing to do with Burgundy but everything to do with the Anderson Valley and the wild Sonoma Coast — remote, distant, yet memorable. The nose is a mix of raspberry, pepper, smoky, blueberry, mocha with a savoury undercurrent of celery salt, plus vanilla aromas. The attack is clean, fresh, juicy and elegant but with intensity and more peppery, savoury, herbal, compost notes with a vanilla, licorice finish. Bring on the duck, quail, turkey and smoke meats. Private wine shops only.

Delicious fruit aromas and abundant spices waft up from the glass. The flavors follow suit, with ripe plum, strawberry and cinnamon all well supported by firm acidity and a medium-to-full body. This is a well-rounded wine that’s easy to enjoy.

This substantive Pinot shows definite toasted oak character along with ripe fruit, full body and firm tannins. Hints of oak smoke and caramel waft over the ripe plum aromas. The flavors go to dark cherries and coffee, the texture is attractively astringent from tannins, and the finish carries a little bite. Well done but not overdone.

From the Los Alamos region, this young, firm Pinot wants a little time in the bottle to mellow. Tasted in January, it's unresolved in tannins, fresh acidity, oak (76% new) and primary cherry and raspberry fruit.

Vivid red. Sexy, expansive aromas of raspberry and cherry compote, Asian spices and cola. Sweet and silky in texture, with palate-staining red fruit flavors and sweet oak spiciness. A floral quality comes up with air and lingers on the sappy, very long finish. Quite seductive and surprisingly approachable now.

Very savoury, celery salt, spicy, incense, plum, black cherry, great tea aromas. Rich, ripe, round, supple but very full palate, almost sweet. Tea leaf, spicy, celery salt, vanilla, raspberry, black cherry, light coffee, tobacco leaf and dried herb flavours.

You might expect rich texture and plush fruit from a high-end Kendall-Jackson wine, but you may be surprised by the distinctive character of the fruit here. It's in the savory mode of persimmon - firm, spicy and earthy rather than sweet. An elegant wine for braised partridge or other dark-meated game birds.

It’s impressive for a wine this good to be made in rather large quantities. Deep in color, it has mouthcoating fruit and rich tannins, with minty notes adding to the deep, dark cherry and blackberry flavors. Full-bodied and full-flavored, it relies on fruit concentration rather than overt oak for personality and is smooth in texture. It may come out of its dense phase and be even better by 2016.

This Syrah is so good, it’s crazy to think K-J made 16,000 cases of it and is selling it at this price. It’s dry, tannic and full-bodied, just what you want in a steak-friendly wine, and the amazing flavors range from blackberry and cherry jam through cassis and plums to toast, smoked meat, vanilla, black pepper and dark chocolate.

A brilliant 1,500-case Syrah, the 2007 Highland Estates Syrah Alisos Hills is from a hilltop vineyard with southwest facing slopes. It reveals an inky/purple color, sweet blackberry, graphite, and charcoal notes, dense, full-bodied flavors, and long, sweet tannins in the finish.

Intense and highly ripened blackberry fruit is the driving force right from the start here, and, while the wine is also decked out with lots of sweet oak, so too it is marked by an indelible streak of peppery Syrah spice. It is very full-bodied and a touch viscous to start, but it is more supple in feel than it is heavy or soft, and it persists quite well at the finish. A couple of years in the cellar will see it start to round into shape, but has the pieces in place to improve for many years more.

A rustic and voluptuous red balanced by mouthwatering acidity, this wine grows at K-J's estate vineyard, which rises more than 1,000 feet above sea level. Saline flavors run through it, like salty figs or spiced plums, mellowed by the richness of new oak. Its firm tannins will sustain the wine as it ages.

Tries, with considerable success, to advance the argument that Sonoma is Merlot's natural home. A ripe, rich, plummy wine, with terrific fruit and superb tannins, easy enough to drink tonight or age a few years. It's so good, you can't help but reach for another glass.

Smoky, oaky, blackberry nose. Fruity, complex... velvety in the mouth, black fruits, black pepper and spices, very firm, very high-toned.

"Earth, black fruits, brown spice, chocolate. Supple, sturdy and very well balanced. Aggressive fruit is interwoven with rich, spicy oak that lasts. Surprisingly approachable for its depth." Cellar Selection.