Reviews

Year's Best Rhones, Best Buys, This is big and oaky, with a thick wrapping of chocolaty fruit on the considerable tannins. Despite its size, it retains a cool feel, the acidity flowing through it like a breeze. An ambitious wine, it needs time and steakhouse fare.
 

Lush and giving, this doesn’t have much structure, but it has plenty of sweet black raspberry fruit and violet scents. For blue-cheese burgers.

Best Buy. A supple Russian River Valley zin, this has fat persimmon and salted plum flavors to balance the notes of peppermint and the sweetness of the alcohol. It turns savory with air, finishing clean.

Best Buy. This is waxy and broad, with earth and herbal notes curbing the sweetness of the fruit. Give it a light chill for a goat cheese salad.

An admirably fresh, cool and airy mix displays notes of lavender, oak, red berries, cassis, spice, wet stone and discreet game nuances along with just enough herbal character to notice. There is good richness to the mouth coating and muscular broad-shouldered flavors that possess good delineation and excellent energy before culminating in a dusty, balanced and palate coating finish that delivers excellent length though the herbal character does resurface. This slight vegetal element is admittedly subtle and may very well dissipate with age but for the moment it's sufficiently noticeable that it is a concern.

Firm acids and softly dusty tannins give this medium-bodied red a welcome bit of structure. Meanwhile, hints of garrigue accent black cherries, with dried-fruit, licorice and cocoa flavors emerging on the finish.

Fresh and snappy, with vibrant pear, honeysuckle, ginger and piecrust notes. Still raw, but offers persistent core of flavors.

Cellar selection. Already impressive, this wine shows great fruit for the vintage as well as structure.  Ripe with black cherries and berries, it has all of Pinot Noir’s rich juiciness, but hints of smoke add complexity as well.  Structured and a shade dark, it needs time to mature.  Drink from 2017.

Cellar Selection. One of the most familiar of Puligny’s Premier Cru has produced a ripe, yet very structured wine. It has intense minerality and a nervy, tight texture balanced with acidity, crisp apple and attractive wood spice. Everything is in harmony on this complex wine, promising a smooth aging. Drink from 2016.

Cellar Selection. While soft and opulent initially this wine reveals a structured, mineral character on the palate. Ripe red cherry and black plum flavors pair well with firm, dry tannins and hints of wood aging. This is an elegant wine that needs aging. Don’t drink before 2017.