San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Oft-overlooked wine catching attention
Merlot was victim of ‘easy-drinking’ success, but Napa Valley is going back to roots
In the lexicon of wine descriptors, one phrase carries an enormous good news–bad news split: “easy-drinking.” The term is applied to a sea of innocuous red wines, but to none more often than Merlot.
The phrase has stocked supermarket shelves with simple versions of the classic Bordeaux variety — wines that don’t make you sit up and take notice, or even think about at all. Perfect for Tuesday-night tacos. That’s the good news.
The bad? The “easy” reputation has destroyed respect for Merlot at the other end of the spectrum — where it does make you sit up and take notice — and decimated the wine’s price. Growers and winemakers on California’s greatest Bordeaux-nurturing sites can turn a much larger profit on Cabernet Sauvignon. So in the last decade or so, they’ve been pulling up Merlot vines in favor of its more reputable sibling. In 2010, according to USDA reports, almost 311,000 tons of Merlot were crushed statewide; in 2022, that figure dropped to about 183,500.
But winemakers — and enthusiasts — know that Merlot drives some of the best, and most expensive, wines in the world (see: Château Pétrus). It can be just as rich, complex, compelling and age-worthy as Cab Sauv — even more delicious. And a few are fighting its demise with an almost quixotic commitment to the meticulous detail it takes to produce world-class bottles.
Home to California’s most expensive vineyard land, Napa Valley has a long history with Merlot. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the post-Prohibition wine industry began coming alive, “people didn’t really know what grew best where,” said Jeff Cole, director of winemaking at Sullivan Rutherford Estate in St. Helena. “So you had Zinfandel, Merlot, Cabernet … I mean, you name it, you had it.”
Winemakers, though, had been trying to replicate the low-sugar, highacid, very structured wines of Bordeaux — a style Old World producers came by because that’s all they could produce in their cooler climates. Ironically, according to Cole, it was an Old World winemaker in Napa — the legendary Russian-born André Tchelistcheff at Beaulieu Vineyard, just south of Sullivan Estate — who embraced the fact that it’s a bit warmer in California. Things get a little riper here naturally.
“Stylistically, you can have all the great things that you get in Bordeaux or Italy or Spain,” said Cole, “but you get a little more of it here.” For better or for worse, producers began emphasizing Merlot’s softness, plushness and approachability. That’s what the consumer seemed to want. And as demand grew, growers planted the grape much more widely, including in places it didn’t belong. Quality suffered as a result.
At the same time, through the ’90s, it was becoming more than clear that Cabernet Sauvignon does exceptionally well in Napa Valley. The variety exploded in the marketplace, prices for land and fruit began soaring, and Merlot became the victim of its own “easy-drinking” success.
At Sullivan Estate, founder Jim Sullivan wanted to rip out his Merlot. But his good friend, the renowned consultant Michel Rolland, said absolutely not. According to Cole, his advice was, “This is the perfect site. The wines are fantastic. You should keep it.”
In fact, Cole has expanded Sullivan’s Merlot plantings beyond the acres on the estate when he arrived in 2013, firmly believing that in the gravelly, well-draining Rutherford soils (which would also be great for Cab Sauv), he can make, in his words, a “structured, rich, layered and age-worthy style of Merlot.”
“It’s not trying to be Cabernet, but it has some of those same characteristics,” he said. “I’m just maximizing the potential of the fruit. The site allows me to do that.”
At $315 for the current release, the J.O. Sullivan Estate Founder’s Reserve Merlot isn’t a Tuesdaynight wine for many of us. Cole has priced it right up there with its Cabernet counterpart.
It’s a bold move, and Sullivan has instigated an equally pricey tasting experience at the winery (Merlot Mastery: Redefining Napa Valley Merlot; $350) to educate high-end consumers. Blind-tasting the Founder’s Reserve Merlot beside a couple of the best-known Merlots in the world is a conversion moment for many Cabernet lovers, according to Cole.
Comparatively speaking, the Blueline Estate Merlot from Hourglass — $85 — is a bargain.
The brand’s flagship Hourglass Vineyard had been earning kudos for Cabernet Sauvignon when proprietor Jeff Smith acquired Blueline Vineyard and built his winery there (newly reopened after suffering severe damage in the 2020 fires). Only Blueline included 6 acres of Merlot. “The smart move would have been to pull it out and replant to Cab,” said Smith, “but we’re not that smart.”
With Three Palms Vineyard — historically the source of some of the valley’s most respected Merlot, now owned by Duckhorn — a stone’s throw away, they couldn’t resist making an experimental lot with their first vintage in 2006. “The wine blew our minds,” he said. “It would have been an artistic crime to pull it out.”
And therein lies the problem. Smith’s Hourglass Blueline Estate is “grand cru Cab dirt,” as he calls it. And Merlot generally has a glass ceiling on its retail price point — about half its Cabernet counterpart, according to Smith. Furthermore, he said, “it costs us no less to farm or make the wine.”
“Merlot is our passion play, not a savvy economic decision,” Smith said. And in that admission lurks a tip: High-end Merlot can deliver an extraordinary quality-to-value proposition.
“It has an understated power,” said associate winemaker Adrien Halpin, who works alongside the well-known Tony Biagi at Hourglass. “It can have some real minerality, concentration and weight, but it doesn’t come across as astringent, overbearing or heavy. It has a lot of energy.”
Joining Smith in devoting top sites to the variety is winemaker Chris Carpenter, who oversees Jackson Family’s notable Napa Valley portfolio, with plantings on Howell Mountain and Mount Veeder for the La Jota and Mt. Brave brands.
“The best place for Merlot,” Carpenter said, “is the mountains: The intensity of light energy, the unique soil profiles, the natural acidity and low yields all combine to create incredible wines.”
He’s not shy about what he loves: “the duality of the red and black fruit characters, the slight herbal notes and the Asian spice, the weight you can get — if farmed correctly (canopy management and crop load are key) — and the plush midlevel tannins.”
Some high-end Napa producers share the love, but have found a workaround on price. Instead of calling their Merlots Merlot on the label, they give the wine a proprietary name and price it as if it’s a Cabernet-based blend. It might be a blend, of course, but if it’s 75% Merlot, it’s legally a Merlot.
Other Napa stalwarts stand by their Merlot bottlings. Keenan, Pride Mountain, Pahlmeyer, Chappellet, PlumpJack and more all turn out great-quality Merlots at various price points.
It comes down to something of a use-it-or-lose-it situation for consumers, if they want to save a few good Merlot vines in California.