Winemaker Notes
The 2023 is fully loaded with Merlot’s distinctive fruitiness: ripe plums and black cherries straight out of the orchard, complete with a veneer of dusty earthiness reflecting the soils that they were grown in. This wine has great bones, by which they mean a kind of sense of completeness to the tannins, fully integrated with the acidity, that gives it a powerful presence on the palate while not distracting from the wine’s aromatic complexity. In the end, great Merlot is all about balancing its generous, plummy cherry-cola fruitiness with the tannin and acidity that drive its tension and inherent power. I think the 2023 achieves that goal perfectly, and I’m excited to drink it for decades into the future.
Blend: 93% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2023 Merlot is mostly from the estate, with some fruit from Truchard in Carneros. Freshly cut flowers, sweet red cherry fruit, mint, orange peel and white pepper are beautifully lifted in the glass. This is a Merlot with a restrained, Pinot-like sense of structure. It will especially appeal to readers who enjoy perfumed, gracious reds.
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 Rutherford sub-region of Napa Valley centers on the town of Rutherford and covers some of Napa Valley’s finest vineyard real estate, spanning from the Mayacamas in the west, to the Vaca Mountains on the other side of the valley.
Inside of the Rutherford AVA, bordering the Mayacamas, is a stretch of uplands called the Rutherford Bench. (These bench lands technically run the length of Oakville as well). Mountain runoff creates deep, well-drained, alluvial soils on the bench, giving vine roots plenty of reason to permeate deep into the ground. The result is wine with great structure and complexity.
Rutherford Cabernet Sauvingons and Bordeaux Blends garner substantial attention for their enticing fragrances of dusty earth and dried herbs, broad and juicy mid-palates and lush and fine-grained tannins. The sub-appellation claims some of the valley’s most prized vineyards today, namely Caymus, Rubicon and Beckstoffer Georges III.
It is also home to Napa’s most influential and historic personalities. Thomas Rutherford, responsible for the appellation's name, made serious investments here in grape growing and wine production between the years of 1850 to 1880. Gustave Niebaum purchased a large swath of land and completed his winery in 1887, calling it “Inglenook.” Today this remains the oldest bonded winery in California. Georges Latour founded Beaulieu Vineyard in 1900, making it the oldest continuous winery in the state. Latour also hired the famous enologist, André Tchelistcheff, a man credited for single-handedly defining the modern Napa winemaking style.