Creamy blackberry, violet concentrate, rich dark plum. Blueberry pancake, soft vanilla, melted licorice. Acacia and tobacco leaf, ground cinnamon and spice cake. Boysenberry cobbler and candied date lead a procession of succulent and sappy fruit through a ringer of crème brûlée, cedar, and clay. Fuschia battles baking spice while decadent oak exerts itself with sensual lushness. This 2015 Oak Knoll District Merlot by Crosby Roamann is a ripe and seductive single vineyard Napa gem.

Led by the husband and wife team of Sean and Juliana McBride, Crosby Roamann is a small family run winery operating out of the crusher district of Napa. They source fruit only from organic, biodynamic, or sustainably farmed vineyards primarily in Napa and Sonoma Counties and aim for a hands-off approach to their winemaking. This bottling, crafted using 100% Merlot from the Jaeger Ranch Vineyard in Napa's Oak Knoll District, is beautifully forward and approachable wine. It oozes the dense ripeness characteristic of the 2015 vintage in a fragrant baked-fruit driven profile. Overt sexy oak adds a glossy sheen to fruitcake and rich earth, announcing this as distinctly Merlot and unquestionably Napa. This full bodied wine is quite broad and unctuous, yet through its shapely curves it manages to maintain balance. Lovers of lavish and luxurious Merlot need not look further.