Winemaker Notes
This is a perfect match with Italian food and dishes with lamb, beef and fowl.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Broad and spicy, with pepper and clove overtones to the rich blueberry and currant fruit, coming together harmoniously against softly nubby tannins on the expressive finish. Drink now through 2022.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
An impressive wine is the 2013 Merlot Canoe Ridge Estate. There’s 5% Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend and it spent 16 months in 59% new French and American oak. Possessing first-rate aromatics of plums, currants, licorice and damp earth, this medium to full-bodied, supple, charming Merlot has outstanding purity and surprising mid-palate density. It’s a sexy wine to drink over the coming 4-5 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
The aromas bring notes of toast, spice and dark fruit. The flavors are pitch black, showing the warmth of the vintage and appellation along with their appeal.
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Decanter
Fresh, appealing nose of ripe black cherry, cream, cinnamon, liquorice and mint. Cedar and tobacco and palate with long length.
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James Suckling
An array of ripe, bright red plums and berries with a good serving of toasty and spicy oak. Acidity kicks in through the finish. An easygoing, approachable style.
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.
A large and geographically diverse AVA capable of producing a wide variety of wine styles, the Columbia Valley AVA is home to 99% of Washington state’s total vineyard area. A small section of the AVA even extends into northern Oregon!
Because of its size, it is necessarily divided into several distinctive sub-AVAs, including Walla Walla Valley and Yakima Valley—which are both further split into smaller, noteworthy appellations. A region this size will of course have varied microclimates, but on the whole it experiences extreme winters and long, hot, dry summers. Frost is a common risk during winter and spring. The towering Cascade mountain range creates a rain shadow, keeping the valley relatively rain-free throughout the entire year, necessitating irrigation from the Columbia River. The lack of humidity combined with sandy soils allows for vines to be grown on their own rootstock, as phylloxera is not a serious concern.
Red wines make up the majority of production in the Columbia Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon is the dominant variety here, where it produces wines with a pleasant balance of dark fruit and herbs. Wines made from Merlot are typically supple, with sweet red fruit and sometimes a hint of chocolate or mint. Syrah tends to be savory and Old-World-leaning, with a wide range of possible fruit flavors and plenty of spice. The most planted white varieties are Chardonnay and Riesling. These range in style from citrus and green apple dominant in cooler sites, to riper, fleshier wines with stone fruit flavors coming from the warmer vineyards.