designation: Vintage

description: A well structured wine, with a good balance between sweetness and firm tannins. It is definitely rich, but preserves some of the acidity and freshness of the year.

designation: Brut Classic

description: A nice, everyday bubbly that offers elegance at an affordable price. Chardonnay contributes crisp flavors of limes, while Pinot Noir brings deeper flavors of cherries. A lovely wine that grows in the glass.

designation: Grande Escolha

description: Made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Casa do Valle winery, this is an impressively rich Vinho Verde. It is smooth, creamy, with green plum and apricot flavors, the acidity a well-balanced counterpoint.

designation:

description: Classic Eyrie, European styling, and perfectly suited to this rather lean vintage. Impeccable balance, with a subtle mix of fruits, herbs, spices, leaf and wood. The grip and authority of this wine are lovely.

designation:

description: Estate-grown and aged on the lees in stainless steel, this expressively spicy Pinot Blanc from Eyrie is the last vintage when founder David Lett was alive at crush. It's a gem, with lively pear, apple and white peach, fresh acids and a lingering finish.

designation:

description: This chewy Picolit is characterized by candy or saccharine aromas of sugar-coated orange peel, honey roasted nuts and dried apricots. The dessert wine boasts a dark, copperish color and loads of chewy consistency in the mouth. It's very sweet; almost too much so.

designation:

description: Full-bodied, ripened perfectly with fleshy apple, pear and guava flavors, this skirts the line between elegance and power, keeps clean and refreshing, and brings in just enough phenolic flavor to put a bit of tannic bite into the finish.

designation: Alisos Vineyard

description: There's a wildness to this wine, with spicy, Proven?al herbs and briary tannins that frame the blackberry, currant, licorice, balsam and cedar flavors. It's tightly wound and dense now, not showing much elegance. But it's interesting and different and could well be an ager. Try after 2011.

designation: Vieilles Vignes

description: A blend of 80% Grenache and 20% Mourv dre from vines more than 50 years old, this is a creamy, lushly textured wine that features subtle hints of toast layered over black cherries and spice. Drink now.

designation: Roc Epine

description: A super value, Lafond's 2007 C?tes-du-Rh?ne bursts with fruit. Bright, bold waves of black cherries laze across the palate, accented by hints of dried spices and herbs. Drink nowC2012.

designation: Roc Epine La Ferme Romaine

description: Open for business, the 2004 La Ferme Romaine can be drunk now or held another few years. Wood spice accents fresh red cherries, while the tannins are on the delicate side.

designation:

description: A new label from King Estate, this forward, fruity, aromatic Pinot Noir offers tart cranberry, raspberry and black cherry, backed with moderate tannins, baking chocolate, caramel and toasted hazelnuts. A lot of flavor for the modest price.

designation:

description: Light and fresh, this carries just a vague hint of barrel toast, but essentially it was done all in stainless. The fruit is clean and pretty, lightly candied, lightly tropical, with notes of sweet cracker, brisk acid, sweet grass and sweet herb. It gathers strength in the finish and holds on nicely.

designation: Barrel sample

description: 87 89 Barrel sample. There's plenty of botrytis here, giving a wine with a great fresh burst of acidity along with the sweetness.

designation: Barrel sample

description: 87 89 Barrel sample. Soft and round, this seems to have more spice than fruit. Its roundness is more Chardonnay than Sauvignon Blanc or Semillon, hardly in the style of Pessac-L ognan.

designation: Reserve

description: Though Columbia Crest is widely available, the reserve tier is not. Just a few hundred cases of this reserve were made, done in an oaky, buttered popcorn style. Think California with more acidity.

designation: Reserve

description: Sweet cherry fruit, slathered in whiskey barrel new oak flavors (25 months in both French and American barrels) is the story here. It's still sharp and oaky, and needs decanting and/or another couple of years in bottle to round out and hopefully assimilate that new oak.

designation: Tribute

description: Will this Bordeaux blend age? Right now it's tight in tannins and very dry, with a stinging astringency through the finish. There's a core of molten blackberries and black currants, but it doesn't seem like a longterm cellar candidate. Should at least soften a bit by mid-2010 and hold for a couple years.

designation: Destruction Level

description: Very rich and layered, a dry, crisply acidic wine that gets the mouth watering like a Sauvignon Blanc should. Shows flavors of citrus fruits, gooseberries, green grass, vanilla and minerals, with a touch of tart pyrazines.

designation: Pheasant Valley Vineyard

description: Bright acidity, polished tannins, less herbaceousness, and more round, forward, sweet cherry/berry fruit are the hallmarks of this Pheasant Valley bottling.