Winemaker Notes
This Merlot is sourced from Brander's estate vineyard and Mesa Verde Vineyard where they utilize the same meticulous vineyard management at both places. Bold and bright this wine offers up plenty of fruit untarnished by any new oak barrels. This 2020 vintage offers gorgeous, pure fruit and presents an attractive, translucent dark ruby in the glass. A nose of sandalwood, cola, and fresh fig with flavors of black-cherry and plum, and a long boysenberry finish.
Blend: 90% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This twist-top bottling is a fresh, easygoing and joyful take on the much maligned Merlot. Pleasantly rounded aromas of cherry, strawberry and baking spice lead the nose into a red-fruit-driven palate with decent tannins and spicy acidity.
Editors' Choice
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.
Today it is an integral part of the greater Santa Barbara County wine region, but at one time the village, Los Olivos, was a stop on the Wells Fargo stagecoach line.