The last large post on California wines was at the beginning of 2025. Then life took over, and I have been dribbling posts out. It was time to get the next big California post out! This will not be a retrospective, like I did here. This will be more like the 2024 post I did here, covering the California wines I have recently enjoyed.

It has been a long time since my last post, and I am a good 100 wines behind, at this point, so these next few posts will be short and to the point.

In September, I got into my car and drove to Hagafen Winery. Covenant Winery sent me their samples. There are no new wines from Marciano Estates or Shadybrook Estates. I also had many wines shipped to me from Herzog and Shirah. I also went down to a large event at Herzog Wine Cellars and tasted all their new wines, more on that below. So, this is not as full a tasting of California wines as last time, but very close. This is NOT a list of available wines and scores for each of these wineries’ wines, but rather a set of tastings of what I have not yet had from these wineries. I have two Invei wines, too!

The plan here is to list the wineries and their wines in the order I tasted them (since I did taste some wines more than once). As I stated before, Covenant continues to impress, as does Shirah, recently, with some of their new wines, which are pretty remarkable!

Many thanks to each and every winery here for putting up with me and sharing their excellent wines.

My overall feelings about the California 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 vintages

Let us start with the facts: the 2021 vintage for California was the best I can remember. Yes, better than 2012 or 2014, and all around, everyone, and every winery came out with fantastic wines. Why? Because God gave each winery enough time to not screw it up, and even when they wanted to screw it up, he made sure they could not! DONE! Look, God gave them a raw deal in 2020, across the state – and we all know it! So, in 2021, he made up for it in spades (whatever that means)!

The 2021 vintage stood out in BOTH the Mevushal and non-Mevushal wine categories. For white and red wines. It was a shockingly good season all around, and everyone came out smelling like roses!

Fast forward to 2022, and yeah, things were quite different! The wines are classic Cali ripe, and while that works for some, I prefer my wines balanced and focused.

The 2023 vintage is looking good, but the REAL focus here is on the non-Mevushal wines! The Mevushal wines are showing success, but side-by-side with their non-Mevushal counterparts, they are paling in comparison. Add to that, scale and winery focus, and I am finding some REAL steals in 2023 and 2024! Read the notes, but focus primarily on the non-Mevushal wines in 2023, IMHO!

The 2024 vintage is a bit early to call. So far, I have found the white wines lovely, and some of the reds have exceeded my expectations. The vintage was smoking hot; I live here, so I would know. However, some wineries managed this by picking earlier, using water in the vineyards or in the wine, or improving canopy management. The intense heat waves came at the end of the very hot summer, but there were some cooler times in between. In the end, time will tell, but what I have enjoyed so far, and posted here, shows promise!