California Wine

The wine shows off dense Cabernet Sauvignon character accented with vanilla, balancing spices and toasty oak from traditional barrel aging.

Creamy vanilla-tinged oak cloaks dried currant and berry fruit with notes ofgraphite and crushed rock, firming nicely on the finish. A true to form Cakebread Cabernet. Drink now through 2024.

Our 2011 Napa Valley Chardonnay opens with fresh, creamy aromas of ripe pear, apple and citrus, with light butter, yeast and spicy oak tones adding complexity. The wine’s rich, focused, green apple, melon and guava flavors are nicely balanced by fresh acidity and a piquant mineral tone. Both mouthfilling and elegant, this quintessential Napa Valley Chardonnay is delectable now, but it will develop even greater complexity with another 5-8 years’ bottle age.

Our 2011 Sauvignon Blanc reflects all the positive attributes of a cool growing season. It’s wonderfully fresh and aromatic, with bright scents of pink grapefruit, gooseberry, melon and green apple. On the palate, the wine is medium-bodied with rich, vibrant citrus (grapefruit and kiwi), honeydew melon, spice and mineral flavors balanced by excellent acidity and a long, refreshing, mineral/chalky finish reminiscent of a fine White Bordeaux. A superb apèritif wine, our 2011 Sauvignon Blanc is also wonderfully versatile with food, especially salads and lighter seafood, poultry and pasta dishes.

Calera's 2011 Pinot Noir Central Coast wafts from the glass with freshly cut flowers, sweet red berries and mint. This is a fairly laid-back vintage for the wine, with less of the pure breed of the 2009 and 2010, but frankly that may be an unfair comparison as those wines were superb over achievers. The 2011 is more an inline performer. The tense, saline finish laced with pretty floral and spiced notes is lovely. Anticipated maturity: 2013-2018.

2009 Jensen possesses a deep, rich garnet hue. Luscious aromas of cranberry, violets, granite, turmeric and raspberry torte mix with an alluring bouquet of peppery nutmeg and black cherry. This fascinating wine offers flavors of baking spice, ripe strawberries, rhubarb pie, chalky minerality and sweet berry wrapped around a juicy, elegant core of fine grained tannins, then trails off to a long, pleasurable finish.

This vineyard bottling is very vintage driven. The cool 2009 harvest has made it ripe and tart in cherry pie flavors, but also rather tannic. It's aloof, revealing little of its soul, beyond the primary fruit and oak. Needs time in the cellar. Could really be interesting over the next decade.

This 2009 Selleck Vineyard Pinot Noir is fascinating and simply stunning. It begins with evocative flowing aromas of gardenia, red currant, cranberry, flinty minerality, pine and faint black licorice. Flavors are concentrated, intense and velvety; lingonberry, dark cherry, a whisper of cinnamon and citrus rind, and seamlessly encompass the palate with a texture that is graceful, broad and beautifully balanced, then lingers slowly on into a juicy, almost ethereal, mouthwatering finish.

Introducing the latest installment in the immensely popular CWS Cabernet Sauvignon series, the 2008 CWS Reserve Lot 31 Napa Valley. A worthy successor to last year's highly successful Sonoma County release, which sold out almost immediately, this release offers deep Cabernet Sauvignon notes of fresh cedar, mint and blackberry, layered over a classic Napa Valley structure.