The 2005 Pure Evil Chardonnay spent some time in French oak. It is light gold-colored with an attractive perfume of butterscotch, spice box, baked apple, and poached pear, more like the nose of a wine three times the price. Medium-bodied, it delivers intense, ripe, spicy flavors buttressed by good acidity and a long finish. This is an awesome value in Chardonnay. R Wines is a new company founded by importer and marketing genius, Dan Philips, along with co-owner, renowned winemaker, Chris Ringland. Winemakers for R Wines are Chris Ringland, Lisa Wetherell, Andrew Hercock, and John Hughes. It encompasses four familiar labels, Marquis Philips, 3 Rings, Roogle, and Bitch, along with 13 others created especially for R Wines. Needless to say, the packaging of these wines is amazingly creative but, more importantly, what is in the bottle consistently over-delivers from low-end to high-end. The R series features Cabernet Sauvignon from the Barossa and a Rose of Cabernet Sauvignon from McLaren Vale. The labels portray different takes on the letter “R”. Consumers owe it to themselves to read the witty back labels. The Marquis Philips wines have established a six year track record of delivering a big bang for the buck. The wines are now made by a team put together by Dan Philips and Chris Ringland with absolutely no change in quality. Starting with the 2006 vintage, however, all of the fruit is sourced from McLaren Vale. The other change of note is that Merlot has been dropped from the program, primarily because of the difficulty of finding Merlot good enough to merit the M-P label.Importer: Dan Philips, The Grateful Palate, Oxnard, CA; tel. (805) 278-9095