Pepper Bridge Winery Merlot 2005
-
Spirits
Wine & -
Enthusiast
Wine
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Our 2005 Merlot is a lustrous, dark-ruby color with a lovely perfume of red and black currants, cream of cassis, pain grille, pencil lead, Asian spices and wild berries. On the palate, it is a rich, layered, velvety-textured wine with complex flavors of spicy ripe black fruit, earth, and cedar. This wine has a great sense of place, beautifully balanced with a terrific, long finish.
"The Best Merlot of the Year--93 Points
Dusty, savory scents of tar and cedar complement a concentrated, sweet plum aroma. The flavors broaden into more complex terrain—dark plum, anise, clove, caramel and bread pudding flavors." The Best Merlot of the Year. 93 Points
Wine & Spirits
"The blend includes 9% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Malbec, all estate-grown. The aromas are intense and seductive, layered with flower, berry and clove. Dense and youthful, the wine has compact black fruits, streaks of smoke and a strong flavor of clove. It's a big wine, with mass and depth. The new oak is pulled back relative this winery's earlier vintages, to good effect, and the fruit can more than carry it. It changes rapidly in the glass, suggesting that once it's past its baby fat stage it will show still more complexity, while retaining an elegant precision." 91 Points
Wine Enthusiast
Professional Ratings
- Wine & Spirits
- Wine Enthusiast
Other Vintages
2018-
Dunnuck
Jeb -
Suckling
James -
Parker
Robert
-
Enthusiast
Wine -
Dunnuck
Jeb -
Suckling
James -
Parker
Robert
-
Suckling
James
-
Parker
Robert
-
Spectator
Wine -
Enthusiast
Wine
-
Parker
Robert -
Spirits
Wine & -
Enthusiast
Wine
-
Enthusiast
Wine -
Parker
Robert
-
Parker
Robert -
Spirits
Wine & -
Enthusiast
Wine
-
Enthusiast
Wine -
Parker
Robert
-
Spirits
Wine &
-
Spectator
Wine
With generous fruit and supple tannins, Merlot is made in a range of styles from everyday-drinking to world-renowned and age-worthy. Merlot is the dominant variety in the wines from Bordeaux’s Right Bank regions of St. Emilion and Pomerol, where it is often blended with Cabernet Franc to spectacular result. Merlot also frequently shines on its own, particularly in California’s Napa Valley. Somm Secret—As much as Miles derided the variety in the 2004 film, Sideways, his prized 1961 Château Cheval Blanc is actually a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
Responsible for some of Washington’s most highly acclaimed wines, the Walla Walla Valley has experienced a surge in popularity in recent years and is home to both historic wineries and younger, up-and-coming producers.
The Walla Walla Valley, a Native American name meaning “many waters,” is located in southeastern Washington; part of the appellation actually extends into Oregon. Soils here are well-drained, sandy loess over Missoula Flood deposits and fractured basalt.
It is a region perfectly suited to Rhône-inspired Syrahs, distinguished by savory notes of red berry, black olive, smoke and fresh earth. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot create a range of styles from smooth and supple to robust and well-structured. White varieties are rare but some producers blend Sauvignon Blanc with Sémillon, resulting in a rich and round style, and plantings of Viognier, while minimal, are often quite successful.
Of note within Walla Walla, is one new and very peculiar appellation, called the Rocks District of Milton-Freewater. This is the only AVA in the U.S. whose boundaries are totally defined by the soil type. Soils here look a bit like those in the acclaimed Rhône region of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, but are large, ancient, basalt cobblestones. These stones work in the same way as they do in Chateauneuf, absorbing and then radiating the sun's heat up to enhance the ripening of grape clusters. The Rocks District is within the part of Walla Walla that spills over into Oregon and naturally excels in the production of Rhône varieties like Syrah, as well as the Bordeaux varieties.