2006 Buccella Cabernet Sauvignon

Dark ruby. Fascinating nose melds dark berries, licorice pastille, violet, coriander, cumin and mint. Fat and sweet for the year, with palate-saturating flavors of crushed black fruits and minerals. The broad, dusty tannins arrive late and build, but there's more than enough mid-palate sweetness to support them. (ST)

Dried fruits like a Christmas cake, with hints of chocolate and nuts on the nose. Full bodied, with a thick and slightly jammy palate, but it's tight and velvety at the end. A fascinating wine.

Good full, saturated ruby. An essence of Napa Cabernet on the nose, with dominant notes of cassis, dark chocolate, minerals and violet. Juicy but youthfully brooding, with a slightly medicinal quality to the intense flavors of cassis, bitter chocolate, graphite and menthol. Not a particularly fleshy style but vibrant and penetrating. This wine's firm acids and tongue-dusting tannins call for at least five or six years of patience. This wine, a blend from 10 or 12 different vineyards all over Napa Valley, was vinified by Mark Herold. Rebecca Weinberg is currently the winemaker here, with Celia Welch consulting. (ST) 93+