The 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley is an attractive, radiant wine graced with expressive dark red fruit, flowers, licorice and spices. French oak adds volume and shape, but it is very nicely integrated. This is a beautiful, feminine Cabernet Sauvignon from Pine Ridge. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2019. Tel. (800) 486-0503

The entry level red, the dark ruby/purple 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley, has a compelling nose of licorice, earth, and black currants. With supple texture, medium body, juicy fruit, and a nice follow-through on the palate, it is already delicious and ideal for drinking over the next 7-10 years. Barrel samples of the 2009 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, 2009 Stags Leap Cabernet Sauvignon and 2009 Fortis Cabernet Sauvignon all showed forward fruit, deep color, charming tannins, and perhaps less weight than the 2008s or 2007s, but lots of style and elegance. They will be drinkable early on and I am sure will put on additional weight during their upbringing in barrel.Tel. (800) 575-9777; Fax (707) 253-1493

The 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa offers attractive cedar, licorice, herb, vanillin, and red and black currant characteristics, medium body, and ripe tannin. Enjoy it over the next 15 years. Tel. (800) 575-9777; Fax (707) 253-1493

Unquestionably, Pine Ridge is making far richer, more interesting, and more alluringly textured and complete wines today than they were in the mid-eighties. The 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon Diamond Mountain is a thin, sharp wine with green flavors, high acidity, and appalling tannin levels making the wine nearly undrinkable. Whatever fruit the wine may have had has been lost.The tasting notes for this section are from two single blind tastings, one conducted in May, 1996, in California, and the other in June, 1996, in Baltimore.