From the last week or so:
2009 Poplar Grove Winery Merlot Okanagan Valley
Surprisingly unready to drink: very backward with hard tannins. HOLD.
2011 Laetitia Winery Pinot Noir Reserve du Domaine Arroyo Grande Valley
Continues to over-achieve my (low) expectations. Entering its prime drinking window; lovely plummy fruit with some great peppery undertones. Effusively aromatic and pleasurable.
2010 Château Côte Montpezat Cuvée Compostelle Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux
Not a fan of young Bordeauxs, but few drink as well as this one does. Big berry fruit, mouth filling and pleasant for sipping with or without food. It's accessible enough for a neophyte to comprehend but at the same time a wine a Bordeaux lover like me can effortlessly enjoy--not often, in my experience, that a Bordeaux can do both. For $25 (Total Wine), great QPR--will buy for the next neighborhood tasting.
2012 Mullineux Family Wines Syrah Swartland
Did not find the burnt flavor in this wine that another reviewer did, though I'm familiar with that characteristic and no fan of it. Bottle variation? Timing? Anyway, instead I found raspberry fruit, white pepper, spice, and minerality--very northern Rhone-like for a S.A. Tasted this alongside the 2011 and several of the $130/bottle single-geological-characteristic 2010s and preferred it, enough to buy four bottles.
NV Sean Thackrey Pleiades XX Old Vines California
Can't think of any other wine we've purchased over and over that, tasting an early bottle, I taste and think "uh oh, this one's a dud" and so I avoid them and eventually open one a year or three out and realize that once again, the frog has turned into a prince. No two vintages are alike except in this one way--they always pull through. Pleiades, I'll never doubt you again.