Winemaker Notes
This 2015 Merlot really shows its strength as a plush, red varietal with a pleasing softness, bright red fruits and deep texture. In its youth, it has a deep structure with fullness in the flavors and aromas.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Ripe mulberries and richly flavored boysenberries make for an attractive merlot. It has impressive size and volume, yet holds a very fresh, long and juicy line to the blueberry finish. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2015 Merlot offers notions of warm plums, baked black cherries, mulberries and blackberry pie with wafts of dusty soil, cloves, fenugreek and cinnamon. Medium to full-bodied, the palate delivers mouth-filling black fruit and spicy layers with soft, rounded tannins and lovely freshness, finishing long and spicy.
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.
Situated in the southeastern corner of Napa Valley in the Vaca range, the vineyards of the Coombsville AVA enjoy a long growing season mitigated by cool, San Pablo Bay fog.