Wine Enthusiast: A fancy Chardonnay, whose 50% new French oak gives a delicious layer of buttered toast and vanilla, but is in keeping with the volume of the underlying wine. Made from grapes ...

Wine Spectator: Shows plenty of power, but remains light and crisp, offering focused flavors of mineral, peach, and ruby grapefruit. Finishes with white pepper and hints of savory herb. Very ...

Wine Spectator: Solid for the vintage, with a good core of anise, mulled plum, boysenberry and fig, all laced with sweet spice and roasted apple wood notes. The nicely rounded finish has ampl...

Wine Spectator: Lots of raspberry and tobacco flavors slide easily across polished tannins, lingering nicely on the deftly balanced finish. Graceful stuff. Drink now through 2017. -HS

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: The 2008 Charbono is a gorgeous wine laced with sweet red cherries, tobacco, mint and spices. This fleshy, expressive wine offers lovely balance and tons of style.

Stephen Tanzer's IWC: Vivid red. Heady, exotic bouquet evokes candied red fruits, potpourri and spicecake, with a mineral topnote. Fresh, penetrating raspberry and bitter cherry flavors show impr...

Wine Spectator: Prickly tannins and a tang of acidity play against blackberry and cedary spice flavors in this firm red, which is nicely filled out, finishing with persistence. Drink now thro...

Wine Spectator: A ripe, aromatic style, this red is juicy with blackberry, floral, tomato and pear flavors that dance through the long, focused finish against fine tannins. Drink now through ...

About this Wine: The Snowden Ranch is located east of the Silverado Trail between Rutherford Hill Road and Taplin Road. The property is a quarter of a mile wide and a mile long. Elevations on ...

Wine Spectator: This is juicy and still a bit compact, with a mix of blackberry, plum and blueberry notes laced with licorice snap and backed by a long, spice-infused finish. A tarry hint lur...

About this Wine: St Hallett Wines sources the shiraz fruit for this wine from throughout the Barossa, from shiraz vineyards ranging in age from 10 years to some that are at least 80 years ...

Wine Enthusiast: A Bordeaux-style blend of 56% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Cabernet Franc, 4% Malbec and 2% Petit Verdot, the Z is typically more immediately approachable than the Fu...

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: The Reserve Shiraz reveals more oak, tannin, and ambition, but I am not convinced it is any better than its less expensive siblings. Although dominated at present by its oak c...

About this Wine: The northern sites of Kalimna and Ebenezer contribute juicy dark berry fruit and rich mocha flavours to the wine while western sites such as Seppeltsfield give Blackwell i...

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: The 2011 Chablis Vaillons is impeccable from start to finish. Layers of yellow stone fruits caress the palate in this overt, yet highly sophisticated wine. The underlying mine...

Wine Enthusiast: Imagine the soft, smooth texture of a fine Merlot. Then combine it with the briary, peppery flavors of a Sonoma Zinfandel. That's what you get in this dry, complex young wine....

Wine Enthusiast: This is a strong Zinfandel. It takes over the mouth with a blast of ripe blackberry, cherry, anise, chocolate and spice. What it lacks in subtlety it more than makes up for in...

Stephen Tanzer's IWC: Opaque ruby. Smoke-accented dark berry aromas are complicated by violet, cured meat and anise nuances. Offers sweet blackberry and cassis flavors, with suggestions of candie...

Wine Spectator: This is lightly firm, with the vintage's plum skin and raisin notes at the edges, but the core of black currant, licorice and anise is juicy and very solid, with spice and iro...

Wine Front: Opens a little stinky and charred but there's a good amount of fleshy cherry and plum fruit along with Hunter earth and some vanilla oak. Appropriately firm, but fine tannin, ...