Moving to the reds, the Cabernet Sauvignon Estate (100% Cabernet Sauvignon aged 19 months in 37% new French oak) offers impressive notes of tobacco leaf, damp earth, cedar, and blackcurrants. It’s look-alike for a top Bordeaux, has nicely integrated acidity, plenty of tannin, and is going to keep for over a decade.

Made entirely varietal from a vineyard scaling from 400 to 2,400-feet elevation, this red is balanced and elegant in style. Peppercorn, cedar and celery seed accent a mineral driven intensity nuanced in black olive, currant and clove.

Deep garnet-purple in color, the Cabernet Sauvignon Estate bursts from the glass with vivacious cassis, black cherry preserves and wild blueberries with hints of chocolate box, dried mint and black loam plus a waft of tapenade. Medium to full-bodied, the palate gives a firm frame of lively freshness and grainy tannins supporting the bright, juicy fruit, finishing long with a minty lift. Elegantly played at just 14.1% alcohol. 12,115 cases were made.

Jess Stonestreet Jackson purchased the Gauer Ranch in the 1990s, renaming it the Alexander Mountain Estate. It’s 5,100 acres on the western flank of Mayacamas with 900 planted to vines, the parcels ranging in altitude from 400 up to 2,400 feet. Lisa Valtenbergs made this 2016 cabernet from a range of parcels and elevations. It’s fragrant with delicate scents of red cherries, floral notes of strawberries and a dark core of pure cabernet sauvignon flavor: That black-currant fruit saturates a relatively light-bodied red (at least relative to some of the bigger styles of Stonestreet cabernets in the past); its gentle woodland freshness brings an impression of redwood fronds and ferns.