Good full medium ruby. Highly nuanced and wonderfully expressive nose combines blue and black fruits and smoky oak. Fat, dense and smooth in the mouth, with superripe but fresh flavors of cassis, dark chocolate, smoke and cigar box. Finishes with big, rich, mellow tannins and lingering notes of coffee and chocolate. A very satisfying 2003 with considerable early appeal but also very good aging potential.

Full ruby. Inviting aromas of blackberry and licorice. Offers an exhilarating sweetness in the mouth, with powerful dark fruit flavors lifted and complicated by mineral and floral elements. Magically fresh and light on its feet for such a large-scaled wine, thanks to perfectly integrated acidity. Finishes extremely long, with noble tannins and superb grip. One of the best barrel samples I tasted in March from this vintage. Offers great potential.

More elegant, downsized, and restrained, the deep, rich, full-bodied 2003 Jericho Canyon Proprietary Red possesses loads of fruit, but a more supple, lighter style than its two predecessors. It should keep for 10-15+ years.

The 2003 Jericho Canyon from a 40-acre parcel of vines at the base of Mount St. Helena, is a blend of 87% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Merlot, and 3% Cabernet Franc. This is David Ramey's homage to Pauillac. With a big sweet nose of white chocolate, créme de cassis, cedar, spice box, and high-quality smoky oak, it is full-bodied, rich, and tannic with notes of chocolate and espresso in the mouth. This wine also needs several years of cellaring and should last 15-20 years.

10% Merlot; 5% Cabernet Franc. The powerful and seemingly bottomless fruit of this opulent young Cabernet is the stuff of show-stopping success, and the rich oak and complex touches of herbs and earth that are laced through it make a very good thing that much better. A real powerhouse in terms of stuffing and size, the wine successfully balances a scant bit of finishing heat against exceptional extract, and never once does its give in to simple-minded ripeness. There are tannins enough to keep it in fine shape for years to come, and it wants lengthy cellaring to be at its best, but its sense of plushness and its immediate fruit will be tempting even now.