Winemaker Notes
Ruby in color with purple highlights and aromas of berries and chocolate, this velvet-textured Merlot is medium-bodied with plum, cinnamon and pipe tobacco flavors. Soft tannins, with a smooth, rich finish.
Pair with steaks, burgers, roast beef or poultry and flavorful cheeses.
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.
The southern part of Italy’s northeastern Alpine region, Trentino, produces quality wines from international varieties. But its most exceptional native variety, Teroldego, with plantings concentrated around the sandy, gravelly, limestone soils of its Campo Rotaliano district, makes a deep purple-hued red wine with scents and flavors of wild blackberry, herbs, espresso and cocoa.